I Walked With a Zombie
by JeffC FTW
Summary: Naru Uzumaki, a young Japanese nurse, goes to the West Indies to care for the wife of plantation owner Itachi Uchiha. It appears to be a tropical fever that caused even a mental illness. Realizing she loves Itachi, Naru is fiercely determined to cure the catatonic woman - even if it means to resort to the darkest magic of voodoo.
1. Nothing Here is Beautiful

**If anyone read "Zombie Brother" last November, you might like this new one. The 40s film which inspired that and "Tales From the Crypt Presents Ritual" - none other than the movie this fic is named and based off. A tale of brother against brother, their love for a woman who lived among the dead, and a young nurse who didn't believe such things could happen. (words from the epic movie trailer) This is femNaruto, if anyone didn't guess from the summary.**

 **In this first chapter are some mentions of race, but please do NOT be offended. I am nowhere near racist, but this is part of the history, the culture, and what happened in the movie. Much of it was based on facts, as have been other masterpieces of the time period. No flaming on my part intended.**

 **Disclaimer: I own neither Naruto or the classic movie I Walked With a Zombie. Cover image is one of the movie's posters.**

Chapter One

Nothing Here is Beautiful

A year ago, I walked with a zombie. And I mean _literally_ walked. It sounds like a metaphor, and a damned good one that has many meanings.

A year ago, if I said those words by the time it happened, it would have seemed very strange. Strange, frightening - and a little funny if I had no idea what it was.

It all began in an odd but ordinary way. It started first in my hometown of Konoha, Japan. I had finished nursing school and had no idea where to go, but my parents were both gone. They'd died years ago when I was a child, in a house fire, and my grandfather Jiraiya rescued me and raised me. He was my guardian up to when I got into nursing school, while all my friends went off to do their own parts. Then he ended up getting shot by gangsters while undercover; he was a member of the secret services.

When Jiraiya was gone, I really had no family left, and all my friends were busy with their own lives. I focused on my career which was what my mom, Kushina, had been, and she taught me enough as a kid. I felt if I didn't become a registered nurse, I'd forget about her.

If you want to know about my dad, Minato, he used to be in the police force before he chose to leave it as soon as I came into the picture. Something happened to make that decision for him, and he and Mom were gone before they could tell me. I even asked my grandfather, who told me that he would tell me the truth when I was older. Although he died before he got the chance. I remember crying for days, my few friends comforting me, and so had my boss, since she was an old girlfriend of my grandfather's when they were younger. I was a little surprised to know that she still had some feelings for him.

I eventually decided it didn't matter, because all I cared about was cherishing my family and what they gave me.

Life is filled with ups and downs, but I still love to live it.

Although, now that I was done with nursing school, I was speaking to my mentor, Tsunade, who ran the hospital in regarding of a position that was overseas. I couldn't have been a little more shocked. _Overseas!_ I had never been away from home before, but she saw this as an opportunity for me to get away from my comfort zone, to expand, and to get away for awhile. It was a whole new world out there, she said.

And I also fit the credentials of this man who sent out the flier, here to Japan of all places, because he was a native, yet his family owned that plantation of St. Sebastian. I remember from history it was one of many to import slaves on ships in those days. I can still recall cringing when I saw those movie clips and pictures in textbooks, in every one you can think of. I wondered if there was servitude over there in the West Indies today, if nothing brutal like the past.

Anyway, back to the present regarding me. I was single, educated well by Tsunade Senju who was known in her day, and I currently had no living relatives.

The line of questions began to get weird: the man, Itachi Uchiha, wanted to know if I was frightened at all that easily. That really was something, because I used to scare easily as a little girl - especially of ghost stories - but I wasn't all that anymore.

 _At least...not a lot._

"This one gets stranger," Tsunade said with a twitching corner of the mouth. "You believe in...witchcraft?"

Now THAT was something I never expected. Really, _witchcraft_? What was that place, a nest of voodoo, black magic and all that jazz that Haiti and its fellow poor Caribbean surroundings relied on? My answer was that it wasn't taught at the hospital, but you have to wonder where some of the miracles of medicine came from.

"Tsunade, I want to know more about the case itself," I said, but sadly, there wasn't a lot that I was given. Mr. Uchiha only wanted it short and straight to the point. The patient was his wife, and he himself was a sugar planter on the island of St. Sebastian. If I said yes to this job, it meant not only would I be paid well, but I would be able to swim, sit under a tree and enjoy a good drink on my days off. Nothing much but monitoring Mrs. Uchiha, whose condition was stated to be comatose likely due to a tropical fever, and that all the best doctors had done what they could.

Now that I was thinking about it, it didn't seem so bad. I said yes in a heartbeat.

~o~

I found myself on a plane and landing down in St. Sebastian in a week's time. I was prepared for the jet-lag, but when I touched down, I found out from the lush Antigua - when I took in the vivid turquoise waters and deep, dark greens of the jungles - that I was to meet my new employer at the boat docks, where we would take to St. Sebastian. I didn't understand why a boat was necessary after the long flight, but I didn't want to test the waters and question.

I simply did as I was told.

To be on these waters just as the sky was at its brightest for noonday, it was a dream come true in itself. Everything was as I imagined it would be. The skies connected to the waters like a scene from heaven. Pure, clean and simply magical. The purity was a contrast to the sapphire around my right forefinger, wrapped within the wings of the rosy hummingbird given to me by my mother before she died, but close enough to the sapphires that ringed the face of my watch, its leather band as white as the clouds overhead.

The wind was warm on my cheek. I was on cloud nine. I breathed in the salt of the mist. _So beautiful..._

"No, it is _not_ beautiful."

I was startled at the voice that interrupted my thoughts. The man stood there: Itachi Uchiha. Taller than me, broad-shouldered as if he'd been in the army or military services, clad in a breezy white shirt tucked into khakis. His face was something you didn't see every day, and that included his long hair, black as a raven's wing, the bangs long enough to reach his chin, and was tied back below his neck. His nose and lips were perfectly aristocratic, his depthless onyx eyes accented with the deep lines slanted on either side of his nose. Really, he was a hell of a man, not too pretty-boy but not too masculine either.

I quickly answered him. "You read my thoughts, Mr. Uchiha." I had spoken to him briefly as soon as I was led to this boat before it was released to take off, and all he said was that he was glad I was here, because he did everything he could to get his wife the help she needed, so the outside of the island was needed - and what better than a nurse from home?

He shrugged with one shoulder. "It's easy to read the thoughts of a newcomer, Miss Uzumaki." His voice was low and rich, like velvet, and smooth like dark chocolate. But it was also hard with authority. "Everything looks beautiful simply because you don't understand." He nodded past my shoulder, and I turned to look past it to see the small fishes that leaped through the water. What was wrong with them?

"Those fish aren't leaping for joy, but fear," Uchiha answered. "Bigger fish want to eat them. Just as these so-called pure waters take their gleam from anything dead at the bottom. The salty aroma is really putrescent if you take too much into your senses."

I had been told my entire life that life wasn't perfect no matter how hard you try to make it that way, but I have never met a man like him who looked at things in a cynical light. Death, decay - all beneath such beauty like this? "You really don't believe that, do you?" I asked, somewhat disbelieved.

"I believe facts as they are," he said. "Everything good dies here, just like everything on the outside. Even the stars themselves. They light the sky, but sooner or later, one to many or all of them will go out whether the sun clears way or simply because their natural gases run out." He gave me one last hard look before he turned to leave me alone at the railing. I was still reeling when he was still retreating. For a moment, I considered going down below for a good drink to clear my head, but I couldn't.

No one had ever broken through to my thoughts the way he did. It was the strangest thing that had ever happened to me in a long time. Hinata, my best friend who was now an intern in her father's company, never could read my mind like Itachi Uchiha. I turned my back to him to continue looking out the endless horizon of blue, but he was still on my mind - mostly his words.

 _The cruelty and hardness in that soft, rich voice, and yet...something I like. He's very clean and honest, not like most men I heard about or even met at work or on the streets..._

I wasn't developing anything personal for my boss whom I met only today - or was I? - but besides that cynicism and honesty, there was something in those ebony eyes that was very...sad.

Hurt.

~o~

When we docked for St. Sebastian, I was amazed at the poor but colorful housing. It gave this place such character that home didn't have for everyone. Palm trees reached for the skies. The people were mostly African American, but it was expected. I wasn't racist, by any means, but I couldn't help but see a number of white-skinned - either American or English, likely - and realized how I must stand out because I was from Japan.

But nobody looked at me twice.

Mr. Uchiha informed me that I could go on ahead to his estate, because he had to get back to the sugar mill where he was needed; he'd been in the mainland on some business that I didn't need to know, but that didn't worry me. After all, I was here only to look after his sickly wife.

I was yet to see the extension of Sakura Uchiha's illness besides being in a catatonic state that could have been the cause of a tropical fever, which was common in these parts.

My driver was a really nice man, carting me in his little jeep, explaining to me that the Uchihas came thirty-something years ago, starting with a Madara Uchiha. This was when an American man chose to abandon the property, only to be confronted by a Japanese businessman who was interested and refused to let it all go to waste. Eventually, his son took over when he was gone, followed by his grandson - none other than Itachi himself. But long before that, the "white man who came before the Uchiha was a descendent of those who brought the colored folks to the island below Ti-Misery."

"What is Ti-Misery?" I asked curiously. He chuckled.

"An old man who lives in the garden at Fort Uchiha." _Which was originally the American's name._ "With arrows stuck in him, and a sorrowful, weeping look on his black face."

I clutched onto the edge of my leather seat in shock at the image of an old man who was in the Uchiha grounds, with arrows in himself and crying. "A-Alive?" I couldn't help but exclaim, but I calmed down when he assured me it was nothing of the sort. Thank God the Uchihas weren't barbaric.

"Oh, no, miss. He's just the same as he was in the beginning: on the front side of an enormous boat." So, he meant a figurehead. "The boat which brought the long ago fathers and mothers of us all, chained to the bottom of the boat."

I had to try not to cry as I thought of all those people taken from their homes and abused, starved and so on, to work for others who were too lazy to do anything by themselves. Suffering never ended in the past, present, or even the future.

"But, they did bring you to a beautiful place," I told him with a smile that he returned, graciously accepting the positivity of the present instead of always living in a painful past.

However, I had to wonder: _that figurehead...does Mr. Uchiha keep it because of his beliefs in suffering and death? Why is he like that?_

~o~

Within thirty minutes or so, I found myself at Fort Uchiha. It was the most beautiful place I ever saw. Lush with flora, classical white architecture, a singing water fountain in the middle...but then I also saw none other than the figurehead of St. Sebastian the driver talked about.

He was right: the weeping face and the arrows to symbolize the suffering of the people who were brought here.

But aside from that, the gardens were...strangely dreamlike. Like I was in Eden. It seemed to have a life of its own, which also kept the old man with the arrows alive. My heart clenched as I imagined if he had really been living and watched everything pass him by. And speaking of hearts, I found myself admiring the metalwork of the gates that opened, seeing how the elegant swirls formed the shapes of hearts.

This great house - I was to know all the nooks and crannies, because this was nothing like Konoha. This was going to be bigger than the small apartment I had to work to make into my own home. It would be a while before I would pay my own rent again. _This is until Mrs. Uchiha is well again. Don't think of it as permanent._

Little did I know that, in this house, things were going to get stranger than I'd ever anticipated.

Little did I know I would hear a confession that only madness could run from the lips of a sane person.

I found myself in my room, in love with the gossamer curtains of the windows and my own bed. The bed was covered with white, to warm but also to cool at night. I heard that the night could be humid. It was here that I would end up finding a brand new happiness deep through the heart - as well as the joy outside these walls.

Delightful, I unpacked and eventually got ready for dinner. I hadn't seen Mr. Uchiha since that afternoon, but I was told by the maid that I could go ahead and get settled in, and that Mrs. Uchiha had been taken care of for me, so I wasn't needed yet.

However, as I switched out of my breezy white blouse, tank and khakis, I thought it unusual since I saw nobody else in the hallway or in the gardens. Not even a chirp of a cricket.

Silence hung the atmosphere like it was really dead, as the owner of these lands had told me.

Soon I found myself in the only dress I owned for dinner, which was pale gold chiffon with pink, lavender and white flowers sequined on the bodice. The thin straps made me feel like I was really naked. I replaced my everyday crystal stud earrings for gold hoops embellished with tiny beads to match, and my long blonde hair was rearranged into the ponytail I preferred.

I burst with excitement as the manservant came to the doorway. "Miss Uzumaki? Dinner."

"Thank you!" I jumped up and hurried out of the room, eager to see my boss again, and whoever else might be there.

 **Review please, but no flames allowed. :)**


	2. The Figure in the Tower

**Kinda sad nobody reviewed yet. :(**

Chapter Two

The Figure in the Tower

I did not expect to see another man in the dining room, which was located on a balcony overlooking a portion of the jungle, and allowing the fresh humidity to come in. Nevertheless, I was pleased to meet someone before Mr. Uchiha.

And this was when I found out that this was Sasuke Uchiha, Itachi's younger brother. "Miss Uzumaki," he said politely, looking me over, "Itachi wanted me to introduce myself."

"Nice to meet you then," I said, "and please call me Naru."

He laughed lightly. I thought it a very nice sound, in contrast to the older brother who didn't seem to laugh at all. I even noticed the similar facial features, though absent of the lines beneath the eyes, and his hair was short and spiked up the back like a duck's tail. He then led me to the table, introducing me to those who sat in each chair. It turned out it would be just me and him tonight, and I have to say I was a little nervous but also excited as I was when I got here. "Here in the master chair sits the master himself, my elder brother Itachi. But you met him on the boat already." I nodded.

Onward to the next, which was the chair in the corner, and property of Mrs. Uchiha, but not the one I was here to care for. "She is our mother, Mikoto," Sasuke explained. "Too good to be in surroundings like this, but also too wise to live under the same roof. She works at the village hospital."

So that meant she was a doctor, which made me smile, though I quickly learned that Mikoto Uchiha only ran the place simply because she loved caring for the sick. "I like your mother already," I said with a happy smile.

"And that is my chair," Sasuke said of the seat to the east of the master chair, "and this is for Miss Naru Uzumaki herself." He was such a charmer, wasn't he? Though I wasn't sure I would...like him if he ended up as a boyfriend, not that I planned on it. I always thought about my life and job to even care about guys at home. Though Sasuke seemed nice enough.

I then let my attention fall to the chair in the south. He hadn't said who sat there, though I figured it out before he answered: Sakura, his brother's wife.

It was then that I noticed how he sounded...hesitant to mention his sister-in-law's name. I didn't think much about it at the time, but I didn't foresee any future events coming in the first night with this man.

Dinner was very pleasant, our conversation light and carefree, but the man of the house still hadn't showed up. Sasuke took this time to tell me that when they were growing up, he went to school back in Konoha while his brother went to America, before they both came back upon learning their father, Fugaku Uchiha, had passed on and left the house as well as the sugar-mill to his eldest son. His youngest was simply second-in-command, the assistant manager.

I did hear slight bitterness, as if he resented being viewed as second place. But I had no idea how to respond to that.

By this time, when we were sitting on the lounge of the balcony, we were enjoying an evening cup of tea - well, _I_ was, and he enjoyed a glass of whiskey. And it was then that I heard the sounds of _drums_ in the distance. The sound was very soothing but also blood-pumping. Sasuke smirked as he saw my reaction.

"The jungle drums - mysterious. Eerie. They are the work drums at the sugar-mill, St. Sebastian's version of the factory business. As a matter of fact -" He put his glass to his lips for another sip. "- the sugar service is about to be poured. I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me."

"Thank you for spending this much time with me."

"Oh, not like I was really missed. The only important man around here is the owner." _Itachi._ "And big brother has the plantation while I have all the charm, as you can see," Sasuke said with a glint in his eyes.

I reclined back in my seat. Yes, he was right about the lack of a charm in his brother, and whereas I saw similarities in honesty, they also had their differences. "Well, when I spoke to him on the boat, I liked him very much." _Except the way he spoke with such a dim view of the smallest details of the world, that broken look in his eyes..._

"Ah, yes. Itachi: strong, silent and very sad. Byronic character, if I say so. I saw him that way even when we were kids."

It was then and there that the drums in the background picked up. He had to get to that mill before his brother or anyone else noticed he never came, but he simply stated it would wait, and that meant another drink, which concerned me. He was taking really too much alcohol before work, and that was never good at home or any other country.

But Sasuke never got his next glass, because he looked up and saw someone approaching. I almost jumped to my feet when I saw _Itachi_ standing there, this time in a two-piece dark suit and a hard expression as he regarded his younger brother's drinking habits. "I was...just leaving," Sasuke said, and that sounded lame. He smiled down at me. "Good night, Miss...Naru."

Itachi watched him go without a word before turning to look down at me without a blink. His eyes wandered over me briefly, and for some reason, I felt like I was being scrutinized, but he didn't seem disgusted. Yet he didn't comment he liked my dress either, not that I expected him to. "Have the servants made you comfortable?" he asked finally.

"Yes, thank you."

The very same manservant who came to me was carrying a fine silver tray with a teapot and a covered dish, likely for someone in bed. Itachi lifted the lid and nodded. "Looks very nice. I will take it to Mrs. Uchiha," he said.

He was going to take dinner to his wife himself, but I chose now to just do this for him since I felt I had indulged long enough, but he declined my offer. "No, you may just relax for the night, Miss Uzumaki. Tomorrow you may start."

I watched him go, feeling a little dejected, but I learned all my life when someone said no, you respect their wishes. But I was not prepared for the sight of him going for the singular stoned structure that reminded me of fairytales or Gothic mysteries. The thought hit me unbidden.

 _His wife is up there._

~o~

For the rest of the night, I didn't know what to make of what I discovered from a distance, and that was the fact Sakura Uchiha - whom I had yet to meet face to face - was up in that tower which could only take place in stories that thrilled you as a child.

There hadn't been much to do, since there was little to no television on this island. But the Caribbean was poor in many parts, and tourism as well as agriculture were what they relied on to thrive and survive. It was really a shame for the folks who lived here, did what they had to, and not all were fortunate enough to find work as servants for good families like the Uchiha.

That night, I was in my white nightgown covered with burnout flowers, turning down the bed and was turning the lamp off when I heard a rustling outside. I walked to the window and peeked outside...and I gasped.

A ghostly figure graced through the shrubs and made its way towards the tower, going up the steps. I glimpsed _long hair_ in the process.

I gulped, guessing this HAD to be Itachi's wife. But I couldn't find it in myself to go out there. Though, as I slid beneath the covers, I wondered why she was out there at this time of night, if she was so sick. Unless nightly fresh air made her better for awhile, which I knew too well...

Sometime during the night, I was awakened by a strange sound that penetrated the walls. _Someone is crying._

And it came from none other than the tower where Sakura Uchiha was living. Curiosity got the best of me, and I slipped out of bed to investigate.

To be out in the open in the night, vulnerable and wary, took me back to when I was a little girl afraid of the dark - or what was IN the dark. My mom would scold me and say that nobody was in the house but us all. Then Daddy would hold me and assure me nobody was going to get me. When they both died, Grandpa Jiraiya just laughed and told me that if someone or something was in the shadows, I had it in me to punch them back if I was good at it.

Though right now, I was a little worried about what I would find in the tower, which was so close to the house yet so far away that I wondered if help would come on time if I even bothered to scream. Though if I could hear this unknown woman's crying, no doubt my screams would be heard.

 _Better not start now._

There was a single staircase inside as soon as I found my way in. It definitely looked like Dracula's Castle, Frankenstein or whatever you could think of. The crying was still heard. I started up the steps, my feet covered by my slipper flats. I picked up the skirt of my gown and ascended higher and higher. Tentatively, as soon as I was at the top, I called out despite my throat being dry.

"Mrs. Uchiha?"

I got no response, but I did get one in the form of the appearance of the figure coming up the stairs and heading in my direction. There was the same floating fabric of a gown I glimpsed in the faint light that broke through the windows of this gloomy place. The woman's hair was long, pale, but due to less light, I saw very little. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get you up," I tried to say, but she said nothing and continued to walk.

Suddenly, my nerves began to rattle when she started to come in my direction. I couldn't see her face all that clearly, but I did make out the faintest lines that the expression was blank. Even...

Dead.

I heard myself screaming as something inside me burst. I scrambled to get away from the creepy woman who didn't speak a word. _Naru, what the hell is wrong with you?! This is your PATIENT!_

And a clearly mentally ill, sleepwalking patient at that.

 _"Sakura!"_

I didn't even hear the footsteps in my fright as I found myself backed against the wall, but Sakura did halt and turn in the direction of her name called. Itachi, her husband, stood at the top of the stairs and saw us this way. I felt my cheeks burn. I had never felt so embarrassed. He took her by the arm and guided her towards the woman who had come with him. "Karui, take Mrs. Uchiha to her room," he said to the dark-skinned woman with red hair, who nodded and did as he told her to. He then turned his attention back to me. "Miss Uzumaki, what are you doing here at this hour?"

"I heard someone crying," I answered, glad I'd gotten it together. "A woman."

He frowned, his brows furrowing. "A woman crying? I have not heard anything of the sort."

"Mr. Itachi?" The butler appeared at once. "There actually was crying. Karui was the source. Her sister had a baby." _Oh, a newborn at this hour. That's wonderful news...but why did those tears sound so sad instead of happy?_

I couldn't help but wince at the hard look Itachi gave me, and I had a bad feeling what he was thinking. He thought I was afraid, and no doubt tomorrow he would give me a lecture about it. That scared me because he'd said it loud and clear that he wanted no scared girls under his pay. But I wasn't afraid - not that much! I was just taken aback.

Well, if he was going to talk to me about this, then I was going to ask him why he never even thought to mention his wife was possibly stricken to the brain. Though that was too bold, if I said so. I used to talk like that, but it sometimes got you into big trouble.

Itachi took me by the forearm and led me out of the tower, into the garden towards the house. I felt warm as that strong hand latched onto my skin and muscle beneath, because I didn't think a touch like that could be as effective as his appearance. I found myself being brought right to that figure with the arrows I'd seen only earlier that day.

"Why was the maid crying?" I asked Itachi, who only shook his head.

"I'm not sure I can make you understand." _And only when you told me everything around us is sad and dying beneath a perfect surface_. "Tell me, do you know what this is?" he asked of the wooden man splashing with water like a real fountain.

"Figurehead of St. Sebastian," I said.

Itachi nodded. "Once the figure of a slave ship - of misery and pain. For generations, they found life a burden. That's why today they weep when a child is born and make merry at a burial." And even after all these years, nobody even thought to try and make the best of anything? I could never understand, then, why anyone would want to live in a place like this if all of it was true. I felt like he was either trying to make this harder than it needed to be...or was he just keeping me alert and aware?

"I told you, Miss Uzumaki: this is a sad place."

 **So Sasuke is depicted differently in here than we know him in canon, but may change later on. And Sakura is seen as a catatonic sleepwalker just like the wife in the movie. Just like the tagline of the movie goes: "The blackest magic of voodoo keeps this beautiful woman alive...yet DEAD!" :O**


	3. Shame and Sorrow

Chapter Three

Shame and Sorrow

I had a pretty restful sleep after returning to my room - only to be awoken the next morning by none other than Karui the maid, who had brought me breakfast in bed. I tried to protest this treatment since I was Miss Sakura's nurse, but Karui insisted since the lady of the house was also under her care, too.

"Miss Sakura once said that the best way to start the day for a lady is to break fast in bed."

I couldn't help but laugh as I agreed with her then. I had no idea how I could even get away with anything like this. I had to say this sweet-and-spicy bread thing that I had was one of the best things I ever ate. Here I began to get acquainted with the maid who went on to say she enjoyed caring for Sakura Uchiha, who was as pretty as the flower she was named after. _The Japanese cherry blossom...so beautiful but tragically short-lived._

I tried not to think about that morbid symbolism.

"Karui," I said after a bite, "if it's not too much, what else can you tell me about her?"

The red-haired woman sighed. "Well, to keep the story short, her heritage goes back to Tokyo, Japan, before her family relocated to the states. That is where she met Mr. Itachi, who then came here after his father's death, at the same time his brother, Mr. Sasuke. Sakura and Itachi married shortly after he inherited the land and mill, but the joy was short-lived. She was taken very ill and became...mindless."

 _Mindless...so she is mental, as a result of this fever. There are so many tropical fevers in existence, and no doctor was able to diagnose? Or have I not been told about that either?_

"Well, Karui, let's see if we can make her well again," was all I could say. Then the topic switched to the maid explaining that she did her best to keep Sakura as if she was well, including dressing her like an overgrown doll and bathing her. Somehow that made me laugh alone.

~o~

As a nurse, I'd be in scrubs at the hospital, but here in the tropics I was allowed to dress casually and for the ever-humid weather. So here I was back in my airy blouse and khakis, which was somewhat like my uniform, and my hair in its ponytail because if I so much as let it run wild, it was ruined.

But before I could get to work, I was called by Itachi because he wanted to have a serious talk with me. I held myself together for what was going to come. As soon as I was inside his personal office, I admired how nice it was, though the word was an understatement. But one feature stood out most of all as soon as I came in, and that was a wedding picture on the corner of the desk turned away from him and facing me. _Him and Sakura._

Maybe she looked different now, besides the hair, but I was drawn to how _beautiful_ she was then. Though I admit I was a little shocked to know her hair was _pink,_ because nobody had pink hair unless it was dyed. And hers appeared natural. I'd seen it long last night, but in this picture, it was short and lightly curled. Her eyes were green as the jungles, bright and full of life. Her white gown was ethereal, sparkling on the left waist, and voluminous. She carried exquisite, vivid birds of paradise blossoms. And as for the groom...

"Miss Uzumaki."

Let's just say that he was as handsome as depicted, but unlike this kind and smiling man in the photograph, his expression was cold and calculating, expecting me to take my seat in the chair across from his desk. Obediently, I sat down. "Mr. Uchiha," I answered.

And just like that, he wasted no time getting to the main point. "I made it clear in my letter to the company that this is NOT a place for frightened girls."

"I beg your pardon," I said, sitting up higher, keeping my legs from crossing because this was one of the signs you make a bad impression, "but I'm not a frightened girl. Hard to believe as it is after last night, I assure you that if I seem to be timid, I was only taken aback. I never would have gone into the tower in the first place."

"And what is so alarming about the tower?" he asked. This formality was starting to rub off on me, but it was an area that I accepted whether I liked it or not.

I shrugged. "Nothing, but you must admit, it's an eerie sort of place. Very dark," I answered.

Now this was the first time I sparked a reaction from him, for the slightest hint of surprise, but in his eyes only. "Surely nurses aren't afraid of the dark."

I laughed a little, happy about this mild change and at my own foolishness. "Of course not. Though...when I was a little girl, I was scared of it. I'm not anymore." _Except on occasion just like last night._ Before I knew it, I was going on.

"It was a bit of a shock to just see my patient that way for the first time. Nobody told me Mrs. Uchiha was a..." I stopped then and there, knowing this would make or break, but he knew what I was thinking and finished for me.

"Mental case." He chuckled, but it was without humor. I noticed its difference between Sasuke's loose and carefree one; his was smooth and fine like aged wine. "Why should you be ashamed to admit it? My wife IS a mental case, but I had my reasons for not including it in the letter. It's...far more complicated than you comprehended, Miss Uzumaki." He stood up and began to walk around to stand over me. Suddenly I felt smaller in comparison.

"And please remember this: when some of the people around here start regaling you with local legends, you'll find superstition a contagious thing. Some people let it get the better of them, but I don't think you will."

I shook my head and answered no.

It wasn't long before I found myself introduced to the Uchiha's primary physician who had a Japanese name but was really from America, similarly to how Sakura had come to be. His name was Kabuto Yakushi, and he was the same age as Itachi, barely reaching the third decade of life. His hair was long and silver, held in a ponytail like me, and his dark eyes were covered with broad, round glasses. He was really nice and sweet, and he was happy to have me work with him. I really looked forward to working with him.

He had to make me laugh in the sense he respected nurses, but most of them scared him, and often they looked over his shoulder to see what he was doing, and he would do the same to them to make sure that they didn't make a mistake.

It was here that I finally had a clear view of our patient unlike last night, and the way she was now differed greatly from her photograph. Whereas she had been vivacious, now she appeared to be all but lifeless. Her skin had been flushed, and now it was pale as the sheets. Her hair, rosy as her gown, was a little past her shoulders and stringy despite being washed and brushed with care. And her eyes were once lively emerald green, but now they were dull and muddied like moss in the rain. I'd seen patients like this before, but because this woman was someone so happy with life, clear as a crystal, and remembering Itachi's harsh words, made me clench in the heart more than other parts of my body.

Zombies themselves, in lore, were ghosts or living dead. Modern stories had them as flesh-eating corpses that rose from the graves. There was also a really good but strong tropical drink of the same name.

Yet here was a "living" woman in a trance, brought on by a severe disease.

"She really makes a beautiful zombie, doesn't she?" Kabuto said jokingly as we stood over Sakura, who lay there in bed, awake but saying nothing and staring at nothing. "Sakura and I were friends. We worked together in the hospital. We went to medical school together in the states even." Then his face fell, which didn't surprise me.

"Sometimes it's easier for a doctor to laugh than to put on a long face."

I knew he was thinking about Itachi's so-called wisdom, but for his part, it was his morale to show sadness because Sakura was an old friend of his. I could understand him very much. Why should he have to be forced to smile when inside was another story?

"I know what you mean," I said softly. "But I have no idea about zombies, Doctor. I've seen patients in states like this, though caused by illnesses that we know, and one of them happens to be...encephalitis." A well-known inflammation of the brain which was caused directly from a virus, a vaccine or anything to trigger. Common causes were fevers, headaches, seizures as well as extreme fatigue and confusion. The spinal cord was also involved, just like in the case of Mrs. Sakura Uchiha. Portions of the spine were burned out, rendering her without willpower.

 _She can't speak or do anything she wants, but obey simple commands._

"Does she...suffer?" I asked Kabuto, who had no answer. Even modern medicine couldn't pick up some things.

"I'd rather think of her as a sleepwalker, feeling and knowing nothing. Very little we can do except keep her physically comfortable, exercised and on light diets."

That really was important, but not as important as - "What about a cure? Could it be possible?" That was why I was here, right?

He looked at me as if he hadn't thought of that. "I didn't...consider. Everything just seemed so hopeless," he admitted. "We did everything we could that other options just seem to run out." _Which is never the first time._

There was one idea of a cure that came to mind, but first I needed to see the records of care for Sakura thus far before I would even dare to bring this to light. What I thought of was very serious, and it was a fifty-fifty chance.

Dr. Yakushi left me alone to read over the reports, and I happened to find myself in Itachi's presence at some point, taken aback with the question: "You didn't find your patient so frightening in the daylight, did you?"

"Not at all. Mrs. Uchiha must have been...very beautiful," I said, but that didn't make him smile at all. What happened had really hurt him so bad that he didn't like to show his emotions anymore. And his response was plain and simple, like he expected it: many thought Sakura beautiful. I agreed with him and was just leaving before he had to ask me again, giving me that stony look again.

"Tell me, Miss Uzumaki: do you think of yourself as pretty?"

That I didn't think I'd hear from him even though I should have. Pretty? I had been told pretty before, but never had I thought of myself that way. "I hadn't," I said honestly. "I've only been told -"

He cut me off. "That's good enough. The less you think of yourself as pretty, or charming even, the more you save yourself the trouble and the rest of us a great deal of unhappiness." He looked back down to the papers he was reading, ending the conversation then and there.

I said nothing and just left. I had to keep asking myself over and over if there was anything I could do to prove to him that happiness could last if you wanted it to. But based on what I'd seen when I got here, I found myself caught in the middle of something I never understood.

~o~

Several days went by when I found myself settled into the job, getting Mrs. Uchiha into her routine of bathing, dressing, eating and exercise with Karui's help as well as a few other maids, I thought life was good except for the fact this woman had to be suffering inside. Though most of the time, a person in a zombie-like state could wake up without recalling what happened to them.

If we ever got Sakura back to the way she used to be, would she be able to tell us?

Today I found myself enjoying a day off, wearing an orange peasant blouse as well as jeans, the weather mild but still humid. I really wanted to enjoy any little shops that were here, since there was no shopping online here unlike back home. Except I could use the help as soon as I was outdoors.

Coincidentally, I found myself nearly running into Sasuke - and he had come in on a _horse!_ "Well, Nurse Naru," he said with that charming smirk of his, "what in the world could you be doing on a day off like this?"

"I was beginning to wonder," I said. "Restaurants or shops around?"

"Better part of it, I should just show you around outside the Uchiha place. It happens to be MY day off, too."

And here we were now, out in the open and enjoying good drinks, though Sasuke might have been having one too many, since he just asked for a second. "Give me another. I have to keep the lady entertained." This worried me a little, because if I saw him have two or three glasses on night one, then who knew how it would be on his day off. I had to take a guess that working either with or _for_ his older brother had to be as bad as it was implied.

"Must be hard working at a sugar-mill if you need at least six ounces of rum," I noted.

He looked surprised. "Six ounces? How did you know how much I drank?"

"I'm a nurse. I always watch people when they pour something. Mathematics." I picked up my mug of local tea when I heard the nearby calypso singer pick up with a new song...and I almost dropped it, but I think Sasuke looked more stricken.

 _There was a family that lived on the isle_

 _Of St. Sebastian a long, long while_

 _The head of the family was an Uchiha man_

 _And the brother, he was the younger man_

 _Ah, woe! Ah, me!_

 _Shame and sorrow for the family..._

It didn't take long for me to pick up that it was literally a song for the _Uchihas._ Though Sasuke quickly spoke up and tried to tell me about a mule that had once been on the plantation, but as much as I wanted to listen, I had to hear more of this song, my interest piqued and no going back.

Suddenly, I felt I may have gotten a bit too far, got more than I bargained for, at the same time Sasuke lost it and called over the waiter who was just returning with his drink, and ordered him to make the singer stop the infernal tune about him and his brother...and of Sakura.

 _The Uchiha man, he kept in a tower_

 _A wife as pretty as a big pink flower_

 _She saw the brother, and she stole his heart_

 _And that's how the badness and the trouble start -_

Suddenly, I found myself connecting more dots in my head. I feared I might be getting too involved in a business that wasn't mine. _None of this has to do with me, but it's come whether I asked or not. This song...it talks that Sasuke and_ Sakura _might have had an affair before she fell sick._

Now I think I deserved to know, but to tread as carefully as possible. Except I had no idea how to even ask the man himself without getting burned by the fire. "Sasuke," I said to the man when I saw the extension of the song which was clearly a scandal I hadn't heard, "if I had known, I never would have listened." But he said nothing, just sat there and continued to brood morbidly.

The singer, a dark-skinned young man, came over and apologized in a rush. "Mr. Uchiha," he said with a bow at the waist, "I've come to apologize."

"All right," Sasuke said bluntly, not looking at him, but the poor man wasn't done so easily.

"Just an old song I picked up somewhere, but I have no idea who made it up. Some of the singers on this island tattle-tale on anybody. Believe me, Mr. Uchiha, if I had known you were with a lady, I never would have sing that song."

Sasuke's head jerked up as his patience snapped. His lip curled, his eyes flashing dark fire, and he ground out, "Get out of here." The dark man clearly was afraid of him now and took off after another bow. I stared after him for a second before returning my attention back to Sasuke. I didn't know if I was afraid of this side of him or not, because all these questions I wanted to know made me feel more bad for him than ever. Though I had no idea what happened, I didn't want to shift blame to Itachi or his wife either.

"I'm sorry he bothered you so much, Sasuke."

He grumbled and picked up the glass of rum. I could smell the vanilla from where I was sitting. "You heard what he sang, Naru. You shocked?"

"Just wished I hadn't heard," I answered, picking up my mug.

A brow lifted as if asking me why without saying it. "Everybody else knows it." So that was his way of admitting to a possible affair with his brother's wife. "Itachi saw to it. Sometimes I think he planned the whole thing from the beginning just to watch me squirm."

I was now learning this about Itachi, a man who intrigued and bothered me at the same time, but to go as far as create a song that tarnished his family's reputation without a care for his own. "That doesn't...sound like him." _And why would he be so blatantly honest if he kept this from me of all people?_

Sasuke regarded me with a snide look. "Playing the noble husband for you, isn't he? That won't last long." He brought the glass to his lips. As I watched him, I came to an idea of a conclusion he must have gotten to drinking because of what happened to Sakura. Alcohol was his way of coping, which worried me because I had seen good men turn into complete scoundrels over one too many.

Suddenly, I really wanted to get back to the house, but he wasn't finished. "One of these days, he'll start on you just like he started on her. 'You think life is beautiful, don't you, Sakura?'" The spite was there, and it struck me as much as the words had.

 _He said them to her once like he did to me._

"'You think you're beautiful, don't you, Sakura'? What he can do to the word _beautiful_ is Itachi's great weapon, like other men use their fists."

Somehow I felt a little something akin to deception, but I wasn't foolish either. Itachi Uchiha really did know how to draw you in with the subtlest ways possible, but I didn't really count on the fact that was me being influenced by his words. I had seen beautiful things my entire life, from small to large, and of course I never was perfect, so I wasn't surprised that he hadn't been either. Nor could have been his marriage.

Yet I never would have been smacked in the face with anything like _this._ I tried to wrack my brain as to whether or not Sakura's sickness was connected to her and the war between the two brothers...

We remained at the restaurant even as night was falling, and by then, Sasuke had so many that he passed out by the time the lights were being lit. "Sasuke, it's time we started home," I insisted, but he seemed to be sleeping so soundly. I resisted a groan of frustration and started to push at his shoulders to get him to move, but then I heard that same tune that never got to finish. Why did he think to come back at this time?!

Damn it, that song really had me glued under its spell.

 _The wife and the brother, they want to go_

 _But the Uchiha man, he told them no_

 _The wife fall down, and the evil came_

 _And it burned her mind in the fever flame_

 _Ah, woe! Ah, me!_

 _Shame and sorrow for the family..._

"Sasuke!" I almost shouted. This time I did get a response, but it was nothing more than a roll of the head as if he was trying to clear his brain, failing miserably. But then I broke when I heard _myself_ in the mix.

 _Her eyes are empty and she cannot talk_

 _And the nurse has come to make her walk_

 _The brothers are lonely and the nurse is young_

 _And now you may see that my song is sung_

 _Ah, woe! Ah, me!_

 _Shame and sorrow for the family..._

Okay, I really have no idea how in the hell he managed to think of me in the verse in a single day, or if anyone else did it for him as he said, but if the episode in the tower didn't unnerve me, then this sure did.

Behind him, the figure of a woman was coming up, and he halted the song then and there as he saw me looking over his shoulder. And it turned out help had arrived in terms of Sasuke's drunken state.

 **The song in the movie is "Shame and Sorrow for the Family", and if anyone wants to see the differences between it and this version for the Uchiha, check out its clip on YouTube, with subs. :D**

 **Regarding said video, one reviewer said this and quote: "You can see how talented the director (Jacques Tourneur) is. He creates a powerful atmosphere of mystery and horror with just a few touches. Sir Lancelot (the singer) makes two appearances in the film. First we just hear the song and the reaction it causes and then the back of Sir Lancelot's head. In the second clip he appears foreboding; like a ghost out of shadows against a turbulent sky and his song gathers extraordinary power and dread."**


	4. Tender Concerns

**Update (02/25/19): Originally, Narumi was the leading lady's name, having been inspired by "Second Love Is Best" by sarhea. In that story, Narumi Uzumaki suffered a terrible breakup with one Uchiha brother, then the second one works out as she deserved. :) It was a real tear-jerker from start to finish.**

 **I decided to now change her name after doing a not-too-long-past fic, "The Gutsy Jinchuuriki", and Naru grew on me since it was the shortened, feminine version of Naruto. :D**

Chapter Four

Tender Concerns

"You look like you need some help, miss," the woman said as she approached me, and I had a good look at her in the light. It was a pleasant change from the shadowy singer who continued the song that gave me more insight on the Uchiha family. _But I still don't not want to believe it, if Itachi really had done this just to get back at his brother for nearly taking his wife. Dad used to say that you should never believe without solid facts._ She had a young-looking face, though I was sure she was older than me and Sasuke even. Her eyes and long hair were black as the sky overhead, her smile sweet like sugar, and she was in a white dress coat like a doctor.

She called for the waiter - or owner of this place - to help with Sasuke and get him on his horse to start him for the fort. Him on the _horse_ in his condition? I could imagine him falling off and then getting trampled on! "A-are you sure about that while he's like this?"

The woman laughed. "Don't worry about that sugar planter. Give him the horse and he'll ride off even to his own funeral." We both watched him go in silence before she looked back my way. "I intended to go out to the fort and meeting you long before this, Miss Uzumaki." Her hand extended to me, and I took it, realizing who she was now.

This was Mikoto Uchiha, Sasuke and Itachi's mother. She was even prettier than I thought. "Oh, Mrs. Uchiha -!" I started.

"Oh, please, Mikoto. Now don't tell me you're sorry to meet me this way. I'm even a little glad this difficulty brought us together. And as for Sasuke, he's been like this for some time." She exhaled sadly. "He didn't used to be this way. And despite what he or Itachi think, I know what goes on more than you would even understand." Then her face lit up as we started walking.

"I even know a great deal about you: nice girl, confident and competent - and kind to Sakura. You are just what she needs."

She was every bit as nice as Sasuke said she was. I was so happy that I met someone who might as well be something like she said _I_ was. Though I may have now wanted to know more about what her late husband had been like, since Sasuke said that he and Itachi barely knew Fugaku since they were kids, other than the fact he was something of a strict man who wanted to make sure his sons and the family name were at their best. It made me wonder how a kindred spirit like Mikoto endured such a life. _She must be an example that something - or someone - rare and beautiful_ could _survive in an environment like this._

Although I doubt Itachi would even listen if I thought to bring this up.

"And Naru?" Mikoto said, looking at me with doe-like eyes. "I worry about Sasuke and his drinking. This has gone on ever since Sakura fell. You could do a favor. Use your influence with Itachi and ask him to take the whiskey decanter off the dinner table."

I thought I'd been shocked before, but it seemed I was more so now. The mother of both the plantation owner and the planter was asking me to talk to her eldest son regarding the younger's alcoholic tendencies. If Sasuke wasn't a true alcoholic yet, then it was increasing a higher percent chance of effectively becoming. "Really, I have no influence with Mr. Uchiha," I said, not ready to use first names with my employer and husband of my patient especially in front of his mother whom I just met.

"Try it," Mikoto said as she led the way from the square. "You may have more than you think."

~o~

I decided to just go ahead and speak to Itachi about the decanter when I was given the deed of bringing Sakura her breakfast, and then I overheard him talking to an employee regarding a dried sugar cane and possibly more - leading to the idea of a drought, which Itachi thought was unlikely since the rain was just a little late.

"I've seen the drought before, Mr. Uchiha. Canes too dry, means it's likely, just to be safe."

Itachi nodded, lips pursed, and then he saw me with the tray. "Well, good morning, Miss Uzumaki." I smiled and answered back. "I heard about your little...misadventure yesterday. On your first day off, too." _Oh, word goes around and comes around._

I giggled a bit. "I had a very good time up to a point." It felt good to share a little casual talk, not so stiff for once. For the moment, I forgot about the disturbing song as well as the many questions I had. All I could ever conclude from that was if I kept at helping Sakura, then maybe the situation could be resolved somehow. I had no part to play in a love triangle, but I had been called here for a reason.

"Sasuke can be very entertaining." _He knows about his brother's tendencies; why shouldn't he?_

"Yes, he can," I agreed, "but I was wondering - if you could leave the whiskey decanter off the table."

He frowned then, brows knitting together. "It's always stood there, Miss Uzumaki. I can remember it in my father's time and my grandfather's before that."

"I understand, but it must be a temptation to Sasuke. If he isn't an alcoholic now, he might be soon..." As a nurse, he should know that I knew this from my perspective.

"Miss Uzumaki," Itachi interrupted, clearly getting impatient, "your job is to care for my wife, not my brother. Therefore the decanter will stay where it is." He turned to leave me alone, and the debate was over. Deflated, I had no choice but to carry on without another word. If I said his mother asked this of me, who knew how that would go.

And that evening, we gathered for dinner, just the three of us. It was a silent beginning, not that I minded. Dinner served roasted fish and vegetables, which smelled divine. And around that time, there was the sound of a horn being blown, followed by the familiar drums that couldn't have come from the mill this time. "There they go," Sasuke said with a twitching brow.

"Joseph -" Itachi was speaking of the employee I'd seen him with earlier. "- thinks that it's a drought that is causing the canes to dry out, and who knows how long. Believes it was _Damballa_ who caused it because he saw fit." I almost didn't hear what he said before he noticed that I was transfixed by the drums, but first the blow of the horn. When he asked me what the source of that horn was, I shook my head. "It is a conch, a great big seashell, that they used to make a summoning horn - to call the faithful to the hounfort."

"What is that?" I asked. And I was speaking of what a hounfort or this "Damballa" were. If it had to do with this creepy magic stuff that the Caribbean islands were said to worship, then I had to pay heed to what he warned me about regarding superstitious legends that even good people got the best of.

"Voodoo," Itachi answered without a beat. "The hounfort is the temple."

"And Damballa is one of their gods," Sasuke added, slouching slightly in his seat. "The big papa god."

I let myself get sucked in as both brothers gave a brief story on Damballa, who was top of the _loa_ , or spirits of voodoo. Unlike simply being prayed to like angels and saints, they were also served physically. Each had their own personalities, likes and dislikes, ritual symbols and rhymes. Damballa was the one who supposedly created all the life; white rum was said to be his sacred symbol. He was even known to have the body of a serpent, using all his coils to form the stars, planets and heavens as well as the earth itself. Shedding the skin created the many bodies of water. "You don't seem disturbed by any of this," I said when they were finished. _Because I heard it even involves the spirits possessing living bodies. Paying hefty prices, sacrifices..._

I remember Tsunade asking me if I believed in witchcraft, and I did have questions but didn't let myself get sucked in. I could see where this was going now and hoped that I wasn't going to sink too deep. "I thought voodoo was something everyone was frightened of."

Itachi shrugged with a single shoulder. "I'm afraid it is not very frightening," he said with a rare little smile, a hint of amusement. "They sing, dance and carry on. And then, as I understand, one of the gods comes down and speaks through one of the people."

"And for some reason, they always pick a night like this," Sasuke said. He was referring to the howling winds, the increasing heat, and the air at its sweetest. All of it set him on edge. He really needed a drink because of it, but the decanter was nowhere near his hand's range. "Where is it?" He raised an eyebrow at his brother who regarded him coolly.

"I think, from now on, we serve dinner without it, Sasuke."

I couldn't believe what I'd seen; he actually went through with keeping the booze from his brother, though his choice to leave it on the table during the day remained as it was. Mikoto's words came back to haunt me: _you may have more influence than you think._

 _Well, thank you then, Mikoto._

Sasuke's glare was venomous. "That's odd." His voice was low, but dripping with the poison a snake owned. "What are you trying to do?" he sneered. "Impress Miss Uzumaki?"

He was trying to start the war at the dinner table, I could tell. I would end up witnessing a heated outburst that the younger was stirring in the pot. "You would simply make an impression without whiskey," Itachi replied coldly.

"You know, big brother," Sasuke said sarcastically, "you've always had such _tender_ concern for me...and for Sakura."

That caused a sensitive thread to be tugged, enough to make the elder brother shift in his seat. "Let's drop it, Sasuke." _Or else we will both say something in front of Miss Uzumaki we may regret,_ was the unspoken addition I guessed.

Just like that, Sasuke was still challenging him. "Why?"

"It's not polite to quarrel before ladies," the older man answered simply.

"Oh, right, we be reserved and polite gentlemen. You were just that way with Sakura that night." Now Sasuke was on his feet and looming over his brother with that heated look in his eye. I swallowed down the fear that if he was trying to protect me from whatever it was that his older sibling was doing to me like he did to Sakura before she fell sick, and that was why he was attacking Itachi the way he was. He thought that the elder could get away with this forever. Here I was a witness to everything.

Again, I repeat the words "just like that", but this time it was with Itachi when he burst. " _Sasuke!_ " He didn't want me to know any of this, even though he might have guessed I knew enough already. "Miss Uzumaki," he said in a calmer voice, "I think it best you take your dinner to your room and finish while we...discuss..." Although _discuss_ was an understatement of a word to use.

I simply nodded and stood up, letting my dinner plate be picked up for me.

~o~

I was in my room that night, just enjoying the evening wind, when I heard the sound of the piano in the main lobby. That had to be Itachi, because Sasuke said he had no musical qualities unlike his "perfect brother". I felt my heartstrings tug with each note that was tapped on the keys.

I could never play with my own hands, but I always understood hidden messages, and this one spoke of sadness and loneliness. Guilt and failure. Imperfection. Unable to keep someone he loved and lost her to someone else - and that person was his own brother. Now his wife was sick because of him. Or so it seemed. _That song said that Itachi told them both no, that they couldn't be together, and that was when Sakura contracted it. But just that verse had to have more than what was said. And did Mikoto know...?_

I had to assume the answer was yes, but then again, I could be wrong. I wasn't going to test the waters and say she knew. She could have deserved a fine daughter-in-law and suffered as much as her son had.

The song's spell, without words, was drawing me closer to him if his aura and his words hadn't already. Here I now stood in my nightgown, quietly closing the door I was sure he didn't hear in midst of his art. To see him there, in his maroon dressing gown and long hair out of its tie, cascading down his back like a waterfall in the night...my heart fluttered at seeing this side of him. The oil lamp atop the grand piano flickered romantically.

However, he stopped as soon as he heard the door, after all. And there I was for his eyes to see. They roamed over me, seeing me for the first time like this. Now we were equal. "I...heard you play," I managed without squeaking. "It's very beautiful."

He pursed his lips as always. "Sasuke must have mentioned I have."

I nodded. "I also have been thinking about what you told me when I first came here," I confessed. "About how all good things died here...violently..." And then I stopped as he stood up when I dared to bring his words back to the surface. He reminded me of one of the classic figures of home. He gazed at me with scrutiny.

"Why have you come here?" he asked suspiciously.

"I don't know." Now that was a squeak which I hated myself for. I just hoped he didn't assume it was fear, when it was really uncertainty. Truth was that I really did not know what to do, nor the real reason why I was even here. It wouldn't have been a good one for him anyway. "I wanted to help you, but now that I am here, I don't know how."

His reply wasn't at all what I would have kept my hopes high for. "You _have_ helped me." I opened my mouth to speak, but words failed me, at the same time his hand came up to gently rest on my bottom lip as well as to silence me. "Naru..."

Oh, God, was it my imagination, or did he just say my name - and I mean _my_ name, not "Miss Uzumaki" - as if I were an equal instead of someone he hired to take care of his semi-comatose wife? "Naru," he repeated, "I'm sorry that I ever brought you here. When I asked for a nurse, I expected someone...hard and impersonal. But it appears you love this place more than I ever thought you would. And as for what you saw tonight: two brothers pitted against each other. Throw in a woman...driven mad by her own husband."

"You didn't drive her mad," I blurted in spite of myself. I desperately wanted to believe that, but was I really certain? For the first time, I didn't know if I trusted my own words. But they seemed to soften him up enough to trust me with what he could tell me at last.

"Before Sakura was taken ill, there was a...scene I am hesitant on repeating. I prefer some things best left in the past, but they do not always go away or lessen with time. It was one of the most hideous moments of my life - perhaps it was THE most. It's true she fell in love with my brother, and we were both powerless. When I first met her, that effect was on me as well as her love for life, and she agreed to come to St. Sebastian with me all too easily when Father died. She opened her practice, worked under Mother who still ran the hospital, but then Sasuke followed after us like he was asked...and everything changed. I wish I knew how long it had been going on between them, nor do I wish to know for the sake of my already broken sanity." His eyes then misted over at the memory, and I was certain I was on the verge of crying.

"I told her she couldn't go, because as it is with the Uchiha - rare out of any other old family in every country - once you were bound to one, it was for life, and you stick through thick and thin. I told Sakura I would keep her by force if necessary." Then his voice hardened a little. "You never knew Sakura as she was. She may have been sweet as the blossom of her name, but there was another side to her that would make you flinch."

There was silence then, save for the drums outside and my own equally booming heartbeat. He looked down to that place as if he could hear it, too, and I felt the blood rush right to my face. But then he drew himself back.

"I think it best we not discuss this again, Miss Uzumaki. I know you meant to just be kind."

Disappointment washed over me as I felt rejected, but I said nothing and just left, telling him welcome and good night after he thanked me for listening to him. I would have asked myself what had happened, but deep down, I knew.

I wasn't there because I was just being kind and helpful to him. Maybe it had been that way in the beginning, but now it was so much more. I wondered for the longest time how secrets were revealed between lovers, whether it was in each other's arms or not. But everyone had their own story to tell.

I was on one of the cliffs overlooking the sea and splashing waves, careful not to slip, when I reached this conclusion. It came to me that night Itachi Uchiha almost thrust me out of the room with his bare hands - certainly from his life. He felt like his vulnerable side had been seen too much and wanted to keep his manly dignity intact.

 _I love him._

I could feel it in my heart from almost the very beginning. But I could not say the words because he still loved his wife. It hurt, and I felt selfish to think about this. Maybe Sasuke was right about what kind of man his brother was, but said brother also confided in me himself with his side of the story. I looked into his eyes and saw the pure, clear honesty amid endless black like the one his wife was trapped in. Hence why I give my choice on this night.

I was going to restore Sakura back to what she'd been before just to make her husband, the man I'd fallen for, happy again.

 **Doing research on voodoo can make you break into a cold sweat or even shiver in every part of your body. Especially when you research the many gods and how things work - especially the big daddy Damballa himself (info seen from Wiki). I mean, little written facts are known about them, because they are nothing like the deities of Asian, western, African culture and so on. Anything except basics, like their roles of creation.**


	5. The Shock of It All

Chapter Five

The Shock of It All

When I decided that Sakura would be cured once and for all, and after all that time of reading the information and already used methods - all failing miserably - I chose to bring my suggestion to both Itachi and Dr. Yakushi, who insisted that I call him Kabuto.

Sakura was sitting upright in her chair when I told first Kabuto, who looked shocked but also familiar with the kind of therapy, but as for Itachi, he was dismayed and disbelieved all in one.

"I can't believe what I am hearing, and what you say comes to the same thing. You are asking me to...pass a life or death sentence on my wife," he said heatedly, turning to look down upon her as he fought an inner turmoil within himself. "Shock treatment...I thought people didn't use it anymore."

Originally, it was the extreme insulin shock treatment, which was eventually replaced with antipsychotic drugs in the sixties, but drugs had already been tried on Sakura to no avail. It seemed that extreme measures had to be taken, and I really hated to bring it to a decision like this. It hadn't been done in nearly four decades, because it was banned for reasons. The treatment was primarily used to increase the dosage of insulin for however long the coma would last, and then be terminated via naso-gastric tube. Electroshock therapy to wake the patient up was even involved.

However, side effects included spasms, twitching, and thrashing. Irreversible damage was either brain damage or death, as Itachi stated.

"Yes, it's risky, Itachi, as Miss Uzumaki pointed out when she suggested it to me."

I swallowed when the man turned to regard me stonily, rebuffed that I'd even thought of such a measure that hadn't been used for decades because of the known risks. "You admit it's terribly dangerous, so why do you advise it?" he demanded in a low voice.

"Because a few people still work with it today, and I've seen cures." _Only a fair few, but successful._ "It's at least a hope."

"And a very dangerous one, Itachi," Kabuto agreed, taking off his glasses to clean them. "But we've tried everything else, and this only makes a cure possible. We even have the resources to carry this out. Insulin produces the coma before the patient is revived by a violent shock to the nerve. The shock can kill but also cure." He put his spectacles back on the bridge of his nose.

I knew exactly what he was feeling, that this was a very hard decision to make. But this wasn't a question of life or death, as I said. "Your wife isn't living," I said, almost passionately. "She's in a world empty of joy and meaning. We have a chance to give her life back to her."

I believe my words got through to him, for it was inevitable what his obvious answer would be.

~o~

No words can describe the disappointment I felt, and what was reflected in Kabuto's eyes. He put the stethoscope on Sakura's chest to check if her heartbeat was normal, and gave me a feeble thumbs up that it was. We were both relieved, but the result was what we never wanted.

No, Sakura wasn't dead. She was still alive, but there was absolutely no change in her condition.

Kabuto looked first at me and then at her with utter dismay in his hollow dark eyes. "Just like I thought..." was all he could say. "But no one can say we didn't try, Naru." He was trying to remain positive despite being so gloomy the entire time, and now this last resort had failed us all. Why was everything so hopeless? What else could _I_ do?

"I'll go tell him," I said. One of us had to break the news to Itachi, and he was busy monitoring Sakura, so the job was all mine. I was the one who felt the most responsible because it was I who suggested it in the first place. _At least she's not dead._ But the thought and self-reassurance did little good to me as it would to him.

"Well?" Itachi asked when I stood before him outside the room.

I lowered my eyes. "She's still alive," I mumbled, "but that's all." When he said nothing, I forced my eyes to look up at him, and I saw no trace of anger or disappointment, or even blame to place. Just sadness in his eyes as well as... _understanding._ No, I did not deserve that, but when I tried to get away, he grasped my forearm and held me firmly but gently, making me look at him again.

"There is no need to blame yourself, Naru," he said softly.

"But I imagined it differently than this." _And she's still the same but not dead like the others who didn't make it through._

Itachi sighed and looked off in his wife's direction. "I feel the same. I've waited for hours, trying to imagine Sakura well again. You tried bringing her back for me, but instead you give me full sympathy and a generous heart. It is better than nothing at all, so don't you ever forget that."

I could not tell him that it meant so much to me. No matter how much I wanted to.

~o~

Days passed. All we could do was simply keep her comfortable. I tried to keep my head up because Itachi assured me, like Kabuto, that I did the best I could. In the end, it was useless.

I've dealt with patients lost before, but things were different this time. I was in love with the husband of this patient, but I doubt it will end happily simply because of the way a little girl dreamed about, because reality didn't work that way. Although it seemed that Itachi might have grown to care about me in a sense, because of everything I did for him, but I didn't want to take the chance and wreck everything simply because of a small sense of hope.

One day I sat beside Sakura as she blankly stared ahead, and I held her hand in mine, whispering that I was so sorry that I couldn't restore her. I let my gaze fall then to the ring that was still around her finger. It was the most stunning thing I ever saw. The emerald was big and cut in its name, glistening within a silver band of romantic engravings. It made me wonder what Itachi said to her when he proposed to her.

"I'm sorry," I whispered on this day, before I stood up and left the room, because then I heard the sound of laughter outside. _Probably because someone really died._ I had to think that way only to keep my hopes from being high - but I was wrong.

Karui and several maids of the house were gathered around, happily chatting, and it was anything but death. Instead, I finally got to meet her sister, Tarui, as well as her newborn son who was yet to be named. He was the most precious little thing I ever met! My heart just leaped for joy, even when I got to hold him.

What highlighted it all was that if the baby smiled at someone, they're his friend for life. That made me feel so proud he chose me without realizing it.

And to make sure he wouldn't forget I was his friend, I offered him a pin that I'd purchased the other day in a little shop, and his mother gushed and thanked me before going off with the other girls, leaving me alone with Karui. "It's nice to see people so happy."

"They're not always happy, Miss Naru. Things can be so bad that nobody can help - not even Dr. Yakushi, brilliant as he is." _Or me._

"Doctors and nurses can only do so much," I said, putting my hands into the pockets of my pants and turning to walk away, her joining me. "They can't cure everything even if they wanted to."

"Doctors that are people can't cure everything." I looked at her and frowned a little. What did she mean by "doctors that are people"? When I asked, she cracked a little smile. "There are other doctors. Better doctors...at the hounfort."

I stopped in my tracks. She - she was saying that people at the _voodoo temple_ could help the sickly?! That was such... "That's nonsense," I uttered, picking my pace back up. I didn't even want to think about this. It was really scary to think about based on what I had heard all my life, seen in movies and books, but Itachi had said it wasn't as bad as many believed, though was it really that simple?

Karui shrugged. "The doctors even cure nonsense, as you say, Miss Naru. Mama Rosa was mindless, and Damballa cured her. She wasn't like Miss Sakura, but she was saved. The _houngan_ cured her."

One thing I knew about this religion was that the _houngan_ mentioned was another word for - "Are you telling me the...voodoo priest could cure Mrs. Uchiha?" I barely even heard my own voice anymore. I couldn't believe I was thinking about this.

"Yes. The _houngan_ will speak to the drums, which in turn will speak to Damballa and the other gods." Her smile broadened, sending more fire up my nerves just like her hushed voice did the same to me. "Better doctors, I'm telling you."

~o~

I visited Mikoto again at the hospital where she ran, and then she was helping a young boy who had an injured arm. I heard her tease him about getting to heaven by having one foot at the hounfort and the other in the church. _Do people who practice voodoo even HAVE a heaven like the majority of us believe?_ Which she in turn related to me as she washed her hands over the sink. "This native nonsense: the _houngan_ has his prescription, then Dr. Yakushi and I have ours."

I had been hearing stranger things more and more, twisting my perception inch by slow inch, but I wasn't letting anything control me in the slightest. I had never been able to stop thinking about what Karui told me, that the voodoo hounfort could be the only remaining - and unorthodox - hope for Sakura. Everything medical had been a disaster, with no change in her condition. Maybe my head was twisting with all this against my better judgement, but I was willing to go so far just for Itachi.

"Mikoto," I said when she spoke of the priest at the hounfort, "you've never spoken of voodoo before."

She shrugged. "Just thought I could take it for granted, because these people believe in it as part of their way of life." That made me relieved she wasn't a real worshipper, but that didn't mean she didn't really _believe_ in it, and I mean not as a religion, but that it had some kind of power. If it was possible that it could cure a sick person with Sakura's condition.

Hearing this, Mikoto looked up and furrowed her brow, but not with the same depth as her eldest son. "Frankly, my dear, I didn't expect to hear this from a nice, level-headed girl like you. What are you driving at?"

"I heard the servants talking about Mama Rose. Said she'd been mindless."

She nodded, drying her hands off with a towel. "Her son drowned. It affected her mind so much that the _houngan_ cured her by giving her a little...practical psychology." Now that was a likely good connection with modern medicine as well as a strange miracle out there. I took a deep breath and declared I could take Sakura there to see him, if he was all that great - but Mikoto was far from pleased that I had to announce such a thing.

"You don't know what goes on at the hounfort, Naru. It might be very dangerous to take her. To both of you." She looked down at both her hands, now around a measuring glass with a clear liquid I didn't identify yet in her hands. "These people are...primitive. Everything natural to them may petrify you that you won't sleep for a long time - and constantly look over your shoulder."

I thought that I wasn't easily frightened, because the dark no longer scared me, but whatever that voodoo temple harvested, maybe she was right. But either way, for the man I grew to care about, I had already made my mind up.

I was going to the hounfort with Sakura without telling anyone. Not even Itachi.

But I knew someone who would help me get there, and how to get in.

 **Insulin shock treatment is an old form of psychiatric treatment where the patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to put them in comas for weeks. It was brought to attention in 1927 by an Austrian-American psychiatrist, used in the 40s to the 50s, before being replaced by antipsychotic medication in the 60s.**


	6. In the Dark of Night

**No spoilers, but in here is one of my favorite moments of the entire movie, and it depends on your perspective, but it's either horrific or exciting - maybe both. XD**

Chapter Six

In the Dark of Night

Itachi was busy at work, so this was my chance to slip Sakura out of the tower when darkness fell. It was now or never without a moment to lose.

On this night, the heated winds howled, but when it would calm down, it would be a pinch of ice before the air currents would recollect with a fury. To be safe, I was bringing with me my coat, and Sakura would need to be bundled up herself. If the priest could revive her with his strange miracle, then she didn't need to complain about the heat or the cold that would often switch places.

In another room, Sasuke was no doubt drinking away his sorrows, equally oblivious to what I was up to with the woman he loved. I began to think that maybe Sakura thought his charm was much more...exciting than whatever Itachi had to offer. To a point, I kind of understood with that one day I spent with the younger brother. However, it still didn't feel like enough even though it made sense to a degree.

Itachi still loved his wife despite what he did. If the _houngan_ gave her back, would it rekindle further hostility? Would brothers fight over her until one literally kills the other? I was more afraid of that than what I was about to do without their knowledge.

I met with Karui outside the servants' quarters, telling her I was really going to the hounfort. Nodding, but with a troubled eye, she let me in, and there she showed me a map she'd drawn out before I got here. She'd always known I would say yes no matter how much I tried to resist.

I listened carefully and intently, keeping Sakura's hand in mine. All this way, she followed without trouble. It felt so odd to lead a "walking zombie" without any need for conversation. In a way, I felt like I was alone in this.

First, I was to go right from the mill to an _obeah_ sign in the cane fields. _Obeah_ was another word for voodoo.

From there, I would turn and face a large tree on the hill, and I was to walk towards it. _Keep walking until I reach crossroads._

"There is a guard there," Karui whispered, picking something up and putting it on my coat breast pocket, "a Carrefour. He just keeps the roads in check. He won't do you harm, and he will let you pass as soon as he sees these patches."

I thanked her and was soon on my way away from Uchiha Fort to the direction of the mill, onward to the sugar cane fields which was where the hounfort was located deep within. A guard would be there, and all I could imagine was an average-looking man like Karui who would simply see what she gave us, without a fight. It sounded all too easy, but she reassured me. I could breathe easily and move through the darkness with my flashlight which had the batteries replaced before we left.

We got to the site of the mills, and the place was still active, although few people remaining. Soon it would be empty and everyone would go home - or to the worshipping grounds we were going. The wind whistled in the tall grass that lined the paths we walked.

This is where I say that, on this night, I walked with a "zombie".

There was nothing much to say about the journey, other than the fact it seemed like forever, but along the way, I cringed at some of the many things that I saw sticking, hanging or simply laying around which you didn't see everyday. All I can say is that Mikoto wasn't exaggerating when she said these people were primitive, and their way of life was horrifying.

I saw the skull of some kind of animal on a wooden stick when I got there. I couldn't even tell what it was because I was so shocked, so I moved on. Overhead, an unseen owl hooted.

Next looked like a dead animal hanging from the tree we came to - _must be a dog._ I had never felt so sick, but either way, I was certain we were getting close. That had to be the sign that Karui was talking about...

No, we just came to it, which was an archway hung with some piece of pottery. Sakura and I walked around it, and for a while, we saw nobody in the distance, which made me wonder if we were really going in the right direction. However, we were too far in, and I wasn't stopping for anything, not even at the skull and bones in a ritualistic circle on the dirt at our feet.

Once I halted as if I could have sworn I heard something - or someone? - following me, but when I turned around, my flashlight shone on what we had been looking for.

I nearly screamed, instead gasping with unbridled shock at the man who stood there.

The face was dark-skinned, as I expected of a native, but what stood out were his _eyes._ I could not think of one thing that could be medically wrong, because there was a chance he could have been born with bulging eyeballs like that. I never counted on this, so I was definitely shocked.

What added to the fright was that I fumbled with my coat to see if the patch from Karui was there, and it was. Sakura still had hers, too, so we were free to go in as promised. The man stood frozen and stiff like a scarecrow in the cornfields, only he was living flesh and blood.

 _Except he looks more zombie than man._

If my guess was right, he really was a zombie, and I mean not the flesh-eating cadavers reanimated from the graves, but a brainwashed, mind-controlled slave made to do the master's bidding. I hurried away with Sakura in tow to get to where we'd come all this way for.

Music and singing was heard in the not-too-far distance. _We made it._ I could breathe a sigh of relief, but we weren't out of the dark just yet.

We had made it to the hounfort. And a celebration was going on. Again, there wasn't a lot I could tell, because it wasn't an elaborate event. The people were dressed all in white, drums were beat, and a man was leading while the rest followed in the song to the father god himself. I had no idea what they were saying exactly, but a small part of me wanted to go out and join; I held back, pushing away the urge threatening to take over. And there was a man in black with a sword held with one hand on the hilt and the pointed end with the other, as he performed a stylized but odd dance, his footsteps in tune with the beat of the drums.

And then, from the crowd, out came a woman who appeared to be in a trance like Sakura, like she was _possessed_. I wondered if this was really true, what the Uchiha brothers said about supposed spiritual possession or if this was just simply being in the mood. These people were doing what Itachi said they would: sing, dance and carry on. It all appeared to be very harmless, aside from those horrid things I'd seen on the way here.

The woman was in tune with the man with the saber - and then the drums picked up at the same time the woman collapsed in midst of the wayward dance, and some men came to pick her up at the same time two more girls in white started to shake their rear ends in time and join the man with the sword.

I was definitely taken aback by everything I saw. And I thought I'd imagined it simply as Itachi said they did it, then combined with Mikoto's words. Everything was in one: natural, thrilling...and horrifying.

But I came too far to turn back now.

Everything calmed down so that people could line up to a wooden door with painted symbols. Sakura and I ended up being third in line, so I had to observe, but the two people in front of me spoke in too low words for me to hear. _Their problems are their own._

When it finally came to me, I took a deep breath and leaned forward to the door. "Damballa _,_ " I said in a low but clear voice, "this woman is ill. She needs your help -"

I never counted on the door opening and then a hand coming to take my shoulder, pulling me in but leaving Sakura outside. I was greeted with darkness, and for a second, my heart jumped in my throat with fear of what was going to happen...

...and when the light was lit, the person was not whom I anticipated to be the "priest" that Karui was talking about. I uttered another gasp on this night.

"Mikoto!"

She regarded me with an expression very similar to her eldest son, with very little warmth this time, but no anger present. "I knew you would come back, Naru. That's why I have come here to tell you one more time: Sakura CAN'T be cured."

I swallowed. I thought I understood she'd be a woman of medicine and science, but to see her here - she said that she took advantage of voodoo because it was the people's way of life, but that was very little information to explain why she was _here_. _How long have you been coming to this place?_ "What are you doing here?" I managed, still in the greatest shock, but I was glad my mind was clear to allow rational thinking.

She sat on the table with the lamp, arms folded across her chest. "It happened the night my husband died," she began. "Not only did he run the mills, but he was also the second head of the hospital which is now mine. That night he passed away from a heart attack, the people who came to me started to disobey me simply because I was a woman of modern medicine instead of their mysteries and their gods, or even their priests. And then..." Her eyes lowered to the ground.

"It may have been an accident, but I discovered the secret of how to deal with it if I wanted everything to run smooth not only for myself, but for them. There was a woman with a baby. Again and again," she said with some hints of frustration, "I begged her to boil the drinking water because it would help. She wouldn't...until I decided to tell her the god Senegal would kill the evil spirits in the water if she boiled it." Then the ghost of a smile appeared on her face with satisfaction at the memory. "From then on, she boiled the water."

Now I understood that these people would never understand modernism the way we of the east or those of the west would, and that was to just simply go along whether you believed or not. However... "That still doesn't explain why you are here, when I bring Sakura," I told her.

"Perhaps not, but I _am_ here," Mikoto replied. "It seems so simple to just let the gods speak for me, whether I believed in it or not. But stranger things always happen. I should have known there was no easy way to do good, Naru."

 _Nothing is EVER easy._

It was then that we both heard the commotion outside, the chatter - the dismay, anger and hate...and fear. I heard certain phrases: _"She doesn't bleed...zombie..."_

Horror turned my heart to ice as I realized that Sakura was in real trouble the longer we stayed here. Mikoto read my mind and insisted her assistant turn off the lantern, and she led me to the door. "Get her back to the fort," she said to me urgently. "They won't hurt you, but I insist you do as I say."

Now it was all easier said than done, so I took Sakura's arm - and noticed the gash in her exposed forearm, seeing no blood, as the natives said. I tried not to think about it, tried hard not to, and instead focused on getting us back to the house as Mikoto wanted. To just follow the way back as we came, and I was relieved I didn't see that spooky, zombie-like guard again in the fields.

When we returned, I wasted no time bringing Sakura straight to her room to lay down. When that was done, I made way for my own room, but then I was greeted with the presence of the husband himself.

"Where have you been, Miss Uzumaki?"

I halted where I was. The wind was calming down, but it was still hot. I couldn't lie to him, so I told him the truth. "I wanted to help you. Everything we tried didn't work, so I...took Mrs. Uchiha to the hounfort." I dared to look him in the eyes, seeing the disbelief that I never heeded his words about the local superstitions, but it wasn't like I completely gave in. Other options just failed, that was all. "I thought they could cure her when we couldn't," I said softly, hoping that he had read my mind like he did that day on the boat.

But he said nothing of the sort. "There's no telling what you may have started with this insanity," he said finally, the judgment there, and I fell inside, before I was surprised again. "You did this all because you wanted to give my wife back to me. Why does this mean so much to you?"

"...you know why," I answered. "You saw it the other night." _You saw I did it because I loved you, but I may not ever have you in the way either of us should, so this was the only way._

"What I saw the other night," Itachi said, "I could hardly believe, Naru. I thought I was looking at a woman who...had _compassion_ for me. Who LOVED me." So he did read my mind like that, after all. I felt a little lighter than before, my heartbeat picking up apace. "And yet you made that trip to the hounfort just to bring Sakura back to me. You, the nurse afraid of the dark..."

His hands came up to grasp my arms, making me jump a little with surprise at his touch alone. "You think that I really love Sakura and want her back," he went on, "and it's like you to think that: clean, decent thinking rather than your own. I've never known Sakura herself to even think that way."

 _Which could only mean that he must have been married to the wrong woman all this time._

Behind us all, the voodoo drums resumed as another ritual took place. I found myself fearing someone could have followed us and was hiding in an attempt to bring my patient, my beloved's wife, back for whatever would happen to her - and it certainly wouldn't end well.

 **The dance ritual is simple but thrilling, made me want to get up and dance. I do every time I play it. XD**

 **So...Sakura can't be cured. Is that really true, in which all of this has been helpless from the start? :S**

 **Senegal is one of known voodoo deities, but what is he responsible for? Could not find known, helpful facts. These beings have little information, but even if there is, it's small and basic, all you need to know and nothing else.**


	7. Unwelcomed Guests

**When we are done with this story (or during, your choice), if anyone wants to see the movie, it is on YouTube. :D The entire film. Maybe you can picture the characters here in place of those.**

Chapter Seven

Unwelcomed Guests

Itachi said there was no telling what madness I started with taking his wife to the voodoo temple, so maybe he was right. But the next day, all seemed well - until when the _police commissioner_ came by to speak to both Itachi and his brother. I had no idea what was going on when I spotted them through the window right after I fed Sakura, and I was just coming out of the tower to see Karui in a tussle with a HORSE that was feeding on the greenery in the gardens.

She really was making a mistake that I learned a long time ago when my parents and grandfather took me to a horse farm, where I learned to ride and to care for them just because, and it was a family thing for Jiraiya when he was a boy. After he died, I never went back also because of my schedules, but I never forgot anything.

"Horse, you are just like that old sabreur up at the hounfort: making trouble and picking your nose where it don't belong!"

By sabreur, she must have been referring to that guy with the sword. I walked up to her and took the reins from her, looking away from him as I led him away. You never look and lead at the same time. Laughing, Karui learned the lesson. It was also here she told me this was the police commissioner's horse, and the only one on the island which the man said was more than good enough for him. I noted for the lack of many vehicles due to this poor country's economy.

"And, Miss Naru," Karui added, "I suspect there is some trouble if the commissioner is here." She nodded in the direction of the window where we both saw Itachi and the man himself speaking, neither of us able or allowed to listen.

 _By trouble, not a little trouble like Sasuke's drinking - but something real. Something big._

Could it have to do with me taking Sakura to the hounfort, after all? Suddenly, I was really scared. Now I'd dug myself into a shallow grave that could get even deeper.

Karui had been watching the horse close to an hour, which was how long the men had been talking. But at the back of my head, to be safe, I was certain the answer was surely yes. And in the meantime, I remembered that Mikoto asked me to have a cup of tea with her, and she really needed to talk to me about Sakura.

~o~

That night, I tucked Sakura into bed, but not in hers - it was mine. Mother-in-law's suggestion, if you were wondering. She warned me that she overheard some of those at the hounfort were whispering about Sakura, saying she was living death and needed to be freed, so they wanted to get her back.

 _To kill her or use her as a minion just like that Carrefour I saw in the fields?_

I was fearful of learning the answer.

Sakura would be in my bed, as mentioned, and this eventually got back to Itachi who came in to check and see all was well. He had to ask me again for the sake of it if his wife was going to be in here for now. I nodded. "Your mother suggested it was best," I said as I pulled the curtains down. She reminded me of Sleeping Beauty in this state.

"She's right." But I saw the forlorn in his eyes, and I knew it had to do with the police inspector coming. I really felt like I was to blame for bringing this onto him.

"I've caused you so much trouble, Itachi."

He looked at me with a perturbed expression. "Oh, no. It was bound to come sooner or later. As a matter of fact, that is why I came here now to talk to you. If we could take this to the gardens..."

A walk in the garden would be nice, just me and him, but not for the purpose you'd think. "It's about the police commissioner this afternoon," I answered.

"Jeffries, yes," Itachi said. "He and Dr. Yakushi together are in agreement with this theory: those drums -" Which we heard now, outside the window. "- won't stop drumming until those people at the hounfort got Sakura back. To finish their ritual tests, something of the sort." He sounded very grim when he forced himself to speak of this, but it got worse when he informed me that the commissioner and Kabuto also reached a conclusion that had hurt the latter just as much; I thought of that last part myself.

"They both agree that, for her own safety and ours, Sakura be taken to St. Matthews - to the asylum."

 _He wanted to have his own wife committed. She hadn't done anything wrong. It's...just the word, but what else can we do for her?_ I wasn't cold-hearted, because it was true. "Might be best," I agreed quietly, lowering my eyes.

"But Sasuke insists she stay here."

Now that made me look up at him with shock. I'd expected that reaction from Sasuke, since it was clear he still loved her himself, but she wasn't HIS wife! "He hasn't the right!" I exclaimed in spite of myself.

Itachi concurred, stating that his brother hadn't the _legal_ right, at least. "But he still says _I_ am responsible for Sakura's illness," he said, his eyes fogging over. "That I deliberately drove her insane by keeping her away from him..."

The more I heard that, the more I believed that lovers deserved to be together, but Itachi - he wasn't a monster. Just a man who had been hurt so much, betrayed by a loved one, shouldered so many burdens, and just wanted what everyone else did. If he was really a bad person, he would have killed them both by now. It was also clear he cared about his brother in spite of everything, but what about Sasuke? It was so hard to tell with all that spite now.

"You couldn't have done it, Itachi," I insisted, putting my hands on his forearms like he did to me, and it made him look at me, the mist clearing away in onyx irises.

"I keep telling myself that over and over again," he murmured, "but no matter how much, it never brings me peace."

 _If only I could say that I could try and give that peace to you. I tried and tried, and nothing prevailed._

So we ended up speaking in the gardens, and what he told me was rational enough, but for me, it was frightening. I'd been living here for barely a month, and somehow I'd grown to call this place wonderful despite the terrible things that transpired.

"I want you out of here, Naru," Itachi told me, looking down at me as I sat on the edge of the fountain before the figure of St. Sebastian. "Go back home to Japan. It's best that you were not involved in any of this more than you already are."

He was saying all of this because of Sakura, himself - and he didn't want me miserable and unhappy. It showed how much he did care. And this time, I had to protest. "But I _want_ to stay," I implored, reaching for him. I'd become so desperate in that moment.

However, he shook his head. "I'm afraid it's not what you want." He sat down beside me and took my hands into his. "I want YOU back home where you are safe. I'm not speaking this as your employer. You remember the first day I saw you?" I nodded; how could I ever forget? "You were looking at the sea with those stars in your eyes. You were _enchanted_ \- and you enchanted me."

I thought my heart was going to burst, but it melted just like the waters rippling behind me. He said he'd been drawn to me the moment he first saw me -

"But I had to destroy that enchantment. You had to see ugliness and cruelty."

 _So you tried, and I see only a little._ "You were trying to warn me," I tried to say, but he wouldn't have it.

"No, I was trying to be, as I said, cruel. Just like I did the same way with Sakura when I first brought her with me. Everything she did and said followed, she left me in the end, so all of it was my doing. Because I don't deserve the kind of happiness you believe in. That is why I want you to go. Since you were here, I've seen how fine and sweet things can be between man and woman, how love can be kind and good...but it is never meant for me."

He had confessed his love to me in a different way than I would have imagined. But he insisted I leave because of how things were starting to take a turn for the worst. He loved Sakura, but it was fragile from the start because of his fear of himself. He didn't want to risk it between US.

When we both stood up, our faces felt too close for a first kiss. But I wasn't sure I could take that chance yet. Instead, I lowered my head and rested it against his strong chest, his arms coming to wrap around me. This was all we both needed.

~o~

I slept on the long lounge in my room, against the wall opposite the window. It was comfortable, and if any noise roused, I would be close to protect Sakura however I could.

Although the slightest noises did wake me in the dead of night. Only this time wasn't unknown women crying. I heard _scratching_ or _scraping_ outside. Opening my eyes, I saw no one in particular in the room, and the window was locked. But when I looked right there, the little light of the gates reflected the heart-formed scrolls onto the wall above my head. Very pretty but also eerie.

I could still hear the scraping, even as it faded away. When I stood up from my bed, in my gown, I saw that Sakura was sleeping soundly in bed.

If it wasn't her, then what or WHO could it be?

I made my way to the gardens, seeing how everything was calm and peaceful. When I glanced in the direction of the tower, at its entrance, I had to hold back a laugh at knowing that there was no sleepwalker this time. I carried on, my slipper flats making no sound across the cobblestones of the grounds.

The water was the only sound that I ended up hearing being out here. But then I jumped when I heard croaking following a splash, only to find it was just a frog diving into the miniature pool.

My heart leaped against my breastbone when I heard screeching and flapping. I looked up and exhaled with a little laughter. It was only an owl in the overhead trees. _Naru Uzumaki, you're being jumpy tonight._ But the relief was short-lived.

The tower door was opening, and it wasn't the occupant who lived there. Could it be Karui or any of the servants? Suddenly, I was afraid to find out. I had to hurry and get back to the room with my patient, or wake Itachi up and tell him a possible intruder was on his property...

I found myself behind the bushes just as the skeletal human shape made itself known especially on the stones, in shadow form. I gasped in horror, forcing my body to move when I recognized the Carrefour guard from the sugar cane fields.

"Itachi!" Thank God he answered my cry, for he was out the door to his rooms and joining me just as the unwelcomed night visitor was coming in our direction. Karui said these "things" were harmless, unless their controllers told them what to do, so there was no telling what this one was capable of if either of us thought to cross him. "What are you doing here?" Itachi demanded. "Get out of here!"

But the skeleton of a man didn't heed. Instead, he advanced, arms outstretched with the need to take what he was ordered to by force if needed, expression unreadable save those bulging, inhuman eyes giving away the promise of death...

"CARREFOUR!"

Mikoto appeared in an instant, hard with authority that made the visitor stop in his tracks. "Go back," she ordered coldly, and just like that, the creature-man turned around on his heel, stiffly and without a crack, to leave us all be. Without retrieving Sakura. Itachi stared after with disbelief, but before he could follow, his mother halted him. "No, don't try to stop him, Itachi. He won't bother again."

Those voodoo people really were serious about getting Sakura, and if one of their guards failed, what else were they going to do?


	8. Peace and Happiness

**I'd done this story in a period of three days, but yesterday and today I put them all up one at a time. Very rarely do I finish a story in a few days time, but here comes the finale. Though I must warn there is character death in here...**

Chapter Eight

Peace and Happiness

You'd think after that episode with the Carrefour, I would have trouble sleeping, but after Mikoto promised us both he wouldn't return, I headed back into my room with Sakura still sound asleep. We were all relieved that she was safe.

For now.

Today, I was in Mikoto's company at the house, but I was unsure how to tell her that I was going to leave in a short amount of time. Right now, I was helping her get a package out, and she informed me that if I had letters, I'd better get them ready before it was too late. Although Itachi appeared then and announced for me that I was leaving all of them.

"Oh, Naru!" Mikoto said, akin to surprise and some sadness. "You can't leave us. We've grown to depend on you. I have, and I know certainly Itachi has." Her eyes twinkled when she looked at her son, who held his hand up to prevent her from saying anything else.

"Mother, she has her reasons."

I clasped my hands in front of myself under the woman's piercing gaze. "I hope you don't think badly of me, that I'm abandoning all of you. I really have grown to care about all of you," I said, trying not to sound strangled. On the other hand, Itachi did this for me, because I had done so much for him, and a part of me was looking forward to returning to the comforts of home and my friends - but my memories of this place would never go away. They would haunt me for a long time to come.

To my surprise, Mikoto laughed and took my hand into hers. "Think badly of you? Why, never!"

The door opening got our attentions. In came none other than Sasuke and Kabuto. Both men were grim, and the younger brother was the one to say the good doctor had unpleasant news for all of us. Visibly worried, Mikoto stood from her seat at the desk and beside Itachi who was guarded as ever. I stayed a close distance from all of them.

"Is it the mill?" he asked, getting a shake of the head from the silver-haired physician.

"No, it's about Sakura, as a result of our discussion the other day, I'm afraid."

Here it was again. And to top it off, Sasuke had been saying some things with the intention to get his elder brother into the mess he thought he deserved. "And the fact that one of the voodoo people got into your house last night," Kabuto said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "The commissioner decided a legal investigation."

I had to hold my gasp in as I imagined that Itachi was under suspicion regarding his wife's condition linked to the activities at the hounfort, and its worshippers were being denied something - rather _someone_ \- as part of their sacred rituals. "I'm on trial," Itachi said, plain and simple.

Kabuto scoffed. "No, I wouldn't put it that way. But there has been a whole lot of talk. This is all getting out of hand -"

"A pretty scene: half the island crowding in the courtroom to watch our dirty linen get a public scrubbing," Sasuke said snidely, and that was enough to make his brother snap.

"Wait a minute, Sasuke, let's talk this over -"

"TALK IT OVER!" the younger exploded furiously. "Why don't you talk now, big brother, and say you're not responsible for what happened to her? Say that every bit of this does not rest on your shoulders." _Oh, no, this is definitely out of hand. Everyone knows of the affair because of the song, and when this gets to court, this will be a bigger scandal..._

And it was then that the stricken Mikoto chose to step up. "Doctor, if you would kindly take me to the commissioner," she insisted. "Perhaps _I_ can explain all of this and say there is no need for an investigation."

"But...why, Mrs. Uchiha?" Kabuto asked, baffled.

"Sakura is not insane," she answered without a missing beat.

There was a second of silence before Itachi asked what his own mother was trying to explain, and what she had to say was too much for him and even his brother to process - and myself included, even though it had been at the back of my head the whole time.

"She is dead."

Kabuto gaped at her just like her sons were doing. "Mrs. Uchiha!" He sounded like he didn't believe it for an instant, but she insisted. _Living AND dead._ "You're not seriously trying to tell me my patient is a real _zombie,_ are you?"

She shook her head. "No, I am not mad. All of it is true...and it was I who did it."

I had to keep my shock from showing. She...she was the one who caused this to happen to Sakura? A state that showed signs of typical spinal illness and paralysis, catatonic...I didn't know what to think, and as a consequence, I nearly missed what she was saying when Sasuke tried to speak his disbelief. "Sasuke, let me explain. I wanted to say it long enough, so now I have to." She rolled her shoulders back and forth to pop the bones before going on, and that was turning it back to me. "Naru, tell them about the hounfort. Tell them what you saw there."

She wanted _me_ to confirm that I was a witness to her being a help to those people as she was at the hospital. "Mikoto was at the hounfort," I answered. "But she's gone there for years, trying to take care of those people." Both Itachi and Sasuke gazed at me as if they bought that, however...

"Oh, I think I understand," Kabuto said with a glitter in his eyes. "I've often talked voodoo to get medicine down a patient's throat." _Oh, so Mikoto wasn't the only one._

"But it was more than that, Doctor," Mikoto told him. "I entered one of their ceremonies one night, pretending to be possessed by one of their gods. It is what I did to Sakura when she said she wanted to go away with Sasuke. That was the night I went to the hounfort." Her face hardened along with her voice. "I kept seeing her face smiling, knowing she was so beautiful that she could take my family into her hands and tear it apart." A dramatic pause.

"Drums drumming in the lights - I heard a voice speaking to me. I don't know if it was my voice or not. I was speaking to the _houngan_. I WAS possessed!" Her quiet voice rose by a level with the excitement and unease of her situation, sending the nerves up my spine. "I told him that the woman at Fort Uchiha was evil...and I asked him to make her a zombie."

Itachi showed no emotion on his face. Sasuke's was tight with anger. Neither said a word.

"I hated myself," Mikoto whispered, looking ahead at nothing in particular. "On the way home, I said over and over again there are no such people. No strange drugs, no such thing as a zombie..."

"You were right," Kabuto said, having not been affected much by this weird tale.

Mikoto shook her head. "No, I said it and made myself believe it. But when I got here, Sakura was raging with the fever."

"Yes, she _was_ raging with the fever," Kabuto answered, repeating the words. "A fever with a long Latin name that we all know outside this country. Encephalitis, with known symptoms of nausea, delirium, and the spinal cord could be affected as much - just like Sakura. It's always had a bad reputation for these after effects. And even with a form of insanity."

"Dr. Yakushi is right, Mother," Itachi said, rubbing the back of his neck. "For all we know, you must have been tricked by your own imagination." That stunned me to know a son would say such a thing to his own mother. She looked at him pointedly for assuming she was an imaginative and offensive woman.

Kabuto put his hands on his hips. "Mrs. Uchiha, as I understand it, in order to turn a person into a zombie - whether by poison or hocus-pocus - you must first kill him or her." Mutely, Mikoto agreed. "Sakura was feverish, delirious even, but I don't remember her _dying_." _Or even being in a state resembling death._

Not even a coma.

He was really saying that Mikoto was imaginative, and therefore nobody believed her. This sent her into a state of discouragement that I felt so sorry for her. She didn't even seem like the kind of woman to just make a story like that up. Her own sons didn't seem to believe it - except Sasuke, maybe, but he said nothing for fear of his own sanity.

I didn't even know if I should agree with the voodoo theory or not, despite what I saw at the hounfort, because there were too many questions now instead of answers given. Mikoto said that she went home after asking the priest to turn her treacherous daughter-in-law into a living dead, and when she finally reached home, Sakura was burning up. That sounded easier to say like in a movie or book, but this was real life.

If I said things were not strange enough, then I've just about reached the edge of the cliff of sanity.

~o~

I didn't even head home anytime soon, because of today. As a result, the family atmosphere was worse than ever before. Brother and brother were still against each other, but one was very adamant about their mother's story of witchcraft and death.

Itachi had said he believed I wouldn't let this stuff get the better of me, and he was right. Although once I saw it, I knew it would be in my memory for a long, long time to come. The same would go for him, too, and add another list of baggage on his list to carry.

Little did we all know this would be the final night of this madness. Those damned drums were going again.

I was with Sakura when it happened, and this time she moved as if under their command - towards the gates of the estate. At the same time, Itachi was leaving his office and had come upon us. The gates themselves were opened because Sasuke had left them open. Me calling Sakura's name didn't stop her, either. Her husband tried and failed.

Then Sasuke appeared and quickly closed the gate behind him, locking it in place. "It's the hounfort," he said somberly. "They're trying to get her back."

He was saying that the voodoo people were using their means to control her, make her walk without direct words, but none of it made sense. "How can they? How could they make her understand?" I asked, sounding like a stupid child failing to understand an equation. _Magic isn't the same as science. There is no logic, only action._

"They have their ways," Sasuke replied with a curling lip. "They have charms that can draw a man halfway around the world." He was speaking of what I knew already, and that was voodoo dolls and potions even. " _Obeah_ tricks, magic - everybody knows that."

But his brother sniffed at this. "Sasuke, we may have believed in all that when we were boys, but we are grown men. We know it is all nonsense." This was his way of discrediting what their mother had said earlier about the woman in the middle of their war.

"Do we?" the younger countered without looking at him. "Have you forgotten what Mother said?"

"No, I have not," Itachi answered calmly. "I could see what was in your mind when Dr. Yakushi was talking." _So did I._ "Just because he didn't know about Sakura's coma, you thought everything he said was wrong and Mother's story was right. It's all ridiculous."

Now Sasuke's head whipped to glare at him. "If it's not true, then why would she come out here, brother?" He was referring to Sakura, of course. "How could they make her move, do anything they want? They can make you do what they want you to."

Itachi shook his head, seeing all of this as pointless. "Sasuke, you're thinking just as they want you to think." His way of saying this magic mumbo-jumbo was getting to him was just like when he warned ME not to on my first day here. That ended the conversation then and there, because Sasuke's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Come with me, Sakura." I took her by the arm and led her away from her husband and brother-in-law - _and lover_ \- to bring her back into the tower for her rest. Karui saw us and waved, though her smile was sad as she knew what was going on. I could only nod sadly.

When I was sure Sakura was well for the night, I headed back into the house - but then I saw _Sasuke_ slouched over on the balcony railing, though it didn't appear he had been drinking again. "Why don't you go to bed?" I asked, standing in front of him. "It's been a hard day on all of us."

He said nothing to that, making me feel even more sorry for him. He had lived with the woman he loved in this state for the longest time, and with his mother's story, he really believed there was no other way to bring her back. I could imagine how he must be thinking, which frightened me. "I'm sorry; I wish there really was something I could do," I said, but it did little good.

"She ought to be free."

I stiffened, petrified that he'd even say such a thing. By free, he meant that the only way to "save" Sakura was to KILL her. _No, no!_ "Naru -" Oh, now he was turning to me, thinking _I_ was the solution. "- you could do it. You're a nurse. You know drugs, and it will be quick that she wouldn't even feel it."

I tried to think of a way to get out of this, by reminding him that she still breathed and had a beating heart. A zombie would never have those things. As far as I, her nurse, was concerned, she was still alive and well - but at an irreparable stage. Sasuke wanted me to believe she was already dead, and I wouldn't even go through with it even though I _could._ At the hospital back home, we had comatose patients that showed no signs of pulling through, so termination had been in order.

Yet I couldn't find it in myself to do this to Sakura.

"Wait a minute," he said when I was walking away. I stopped but didn't look at him. "You love Itachi."

I don't remember giving him a hint of that, but he saw it all along. My silence gave him the answer. "Then what good would it do to you if Sakura still lives?" he asked, and this was where I didn't want a big discussion to happen at a time like this.

"Sasuke...I'm afraid I love him too much to just take his wife away from him like that." His eyes lowered as his apology.

When I left him alone where he was, it would be the final time either of us saw him - him and Sakura. The drums were going again as I went to bed, but by then, I was so tired like the rest of the house that I lost my willpower to get up and see if anything was wrong again.

~o~

We were up at the morning light when we heard the commotion of people coming onto the grounds through the gates, which the butler opened to let them all in. Mikoto, Itachi and I were at the entrance of the house itself when we gathered to see WHO the people with the torches brought in.

First came a small parade of men with _Sasuke_ above their heads. His mother gasped audibly and slapped both hands over her mouth. Itachi looked at her as he placed a hand on her shoulder, and I could only watch as the body was brought in - and following right behind was none other than the same Carrefour from the hounfort, carrying _Sakura_ bridal style in his arms. They all walked past the figure with the arrows, weeping as we all did. Just like Itachi said.

 _They're both dead._

The natives laid both bodies down, side by side, on the cobblestoned ground before us, and their leader did the honors of giving the short story. They had been in the waters, fishing that morning, when they found the bodies floating close but apart. It was likely that Sasuke took her in with him; what other explanation could there be?

Unless voodoo had everything to do with it.

I had a terrible idea as I remembered Sasuke's desire to set his beloved free, and my reluctance to go through with it. The image of him walking into the ocean with Sakura in his arms came to mind. _He must have taken matters into his own hands - or did the voodoo people influence him to do it like these people said?_

We would never know the real answer, just leaving it ambiguous and opened. Would there ever be closure?

That night, there was nothing but grief and sorrow over these losses. I really cried for the first time in Itachi's arms then, just as his mother sobbed her despair. She blamed herself for doing this to Sakura, but she also did it because Sakura tore her family apart.

Itachi blamed himself for believing he'd driven his wife mad, keeping her from the man she really loved. He blamed himself for making her see the ugliness in life, so drove her away to another man - his own brother, in fact.

Me? I could not have anything on myself, because a doctor and nurse, man or woman, did the best they could and were NOT God by any means. Though I wanted so much to blame myself for not doing what Sasuke asked, and if I'd done that, he might still be alive. But like I told him, it was a selfish act against Itachi.

Even that didn't prevent him from doing the deed himself, and letting his own life go with hers since he couldn't live without her any longer.

In a way, this reminded me of Romeo and Juliet. Lovers together in death, and then their families got together after years of blood feud. There had been a feud here, and blood spilled in the end.

This is where I say, a year later, when I walked the shores with Itachi. Just the two of us as the sun was setting.

I'd gone back home to Konoha after the funeral services of his wife and brother, because Itachi said that it was best I wasn't involved any longer after this disaster. And his mother was in the greatest wreck, so I was reluctant to say no to his plea. "Naru," he said firmly, "I love you more than you could imagine. But we've lost two people we cherished, so it is best you return home for the time being. You are as broken as I am."

 _How - how dare you think of me as broken when we could just be there for each other?!_

Now this was when I'd lost it with him, after all this time of being composed by him. But his decision was final. So I took the boat to Antigua and then to a plane for Japan. I had so much to tell Tsunade and my friends, but I was going to leave out the truth about voodoo, for I wasn't going to take the chance of being called insane.

I had sympathizers over the story that happened between the brother and the brother's wife who had been my patient - and it was a couple girls who had to tease me that I'd fallen in love with the patient's husband, to which I blushed madly and said it was all nothing...but inside was another story.

I never could stop thinking about Itachi for months after that. I had no letters, nothing. I was haunted in sleep by the memory of the corpses being carried from the ocean, the voodoo guard and those bulging eyes. But somehow I still slept restful. I went about my old life with my friends, then Hinata came home, and we exchanged our stories, which made us both cry in each other's arms in the end.

It was also then that she insisted I had to go back to St. Sebastian if I really loved Itachi that much.

After all this time, I knew she was right. So, I spoke to Tsunade, and she heartedly supported, and then the vein bulged in her forehead when she insisted that if he so much as tried to turn me back, I put my foot down and say that I was going to be there for him whether he deserved it or not.

When I got there, everything was just as I remembered - but something different. Something merry going on. I remember it being this way at the funeral of Sasuke and Sakura, but now was something else. I couldn't even figure it out, for the life of me.

But then, as soon as I docked from the boat back on St. Sebastian, I saw him.

In the crowd, he was coming my way, and I hadn't seen him in almost a year. There was a significant change about him: a glow that I never thought I would see in him. And right behind him was Mikoto, who had hollow eyes now, but she was still smiling. What happened to her son and daughter-in-law had changed her effectively.

Itachi must have a lot to tell me, and I wanted to say so much to him, too, but right now, it was then that he took me into his arms, telling me how much he missed me without words, and laid down a first kiss on me with his mother and a crowd of people cheering us on.

Did that mean this island of St. Sebastian was freed from the curse of pain and suffering after what transpired - and because _I_ was here? It was all too good to be true.

Here I find myself now, after transferring much of my life here, because I wanted to help Mikoto run the hospital, no matter how frightful and strange my experiences were before. I did learn eventually that voodoo worked only if you _truly_ believed it would, but Mikoto taught me how to use it as she did. Gradually, I learned to handle these people with their primitive ways, and their beliefs were a tool to make them accept modern medicines to cure them.

I did stay in touch with my friends back home, mostly Hinata - who was thinking about coming to this island for a visit someday. And she would get her chance at the wedding that was planned in the following summer.

 _That day I'll be Mrs. Naru Uchiha._

This is where I am now with my new fiancé, none other than Itachi Uchiha. Whose wife I cared for, who had been a thorn in his side and turned his brother against him, but their mother had done them all a favor at the cost of her own happiness. She did what she could for her family, but it had also taken the wife and her lover with her.

Then I was here, and nothing I did could help no matter how much I wanted to. Yet it also got me this wonderful man who had been through so much. Who I stood with above the lapping waves, in a sheer net lace dress with billowing sleeves, and watched the sky with its shades of royal blue, lavender, fiery orange and yellow over indigo and silver waters. My hair was out of its tie for a change, so he could run his fingers through my hair.

Around my finger was a radiantly cut diamond ringed with rounds and baguettes. It was the most beautiful thing I ever wore, and even if it were a plain band or a simple yet elegant solitaire, I would have been happy anyway. I could stare at it forever as I rested that palm against a strong chest covered as always by crisp white.

But where we stood now was on the cliffs, overlooking a certain spot that had bad memories, but it seemed mild now - yet the ghosts would always be there. "Does it still hurt?" I asked him when I looked up at his face, at those long bangs framing his handsome features. He turned to look down at me with a warm, loving smile that had long ago been hidden away.

"No. Not at all. It's nothing now that you are with me." And with that was another kiss, the pit below forgotten as if locked away for the moment. We were lost in nothing and no one but each other as the wind began to cool as it picked up again.

Sasuke had loved his brother's wife, and it did not end the way either of them wanted. Then I came into their lives to help the woman, none of us knowing their mother - a good woman at heart - had been the real possible cause whilst her own son had blamed himself. However, in the end, the only way was to set the woman who was alive but dead at the same time free...with her lover following her. He knew I had fallen in love with the husband, and had done this for us when I couldn't push the termination button myself.

 _I could never do it, so Sasuke did._ In a way, I did owe him and thanked him. I just hoped that he and Sakura had their peace and happiness in the afterlife somehow.

I'm not religious, but there is a verse in the Bible that ironically tied to what had happened, which came to light as I looked across the setting sun, above the spot where Sasuke and Sakura were found by the natives that morning, in the arms of my future husband.

 _"Oh, Lord God most holy: deliver them from the pains of eternal death. The woman was a wicked woman, and she was dead in her own life. Ye Lord, dead in the selfishness of her spirit - and the man followed her. Her steps led him down to evil. Her feet took hold of death. Forgive him, O Lord, who knows the secrets of all hearts. Ye Lord to them who are dead...and give peace and happiness to the living."_

 **The way the movie ended was when the voodoo people used a doll that looked like the catatonic wife to make her come to them, and the brother himself (her lover) thought the same way as Sasuke, but we SAW what happened. The wife was going to the gates again on command, and he decided to put her out of her misery by taking an arrow from the St. Sebastian figure...and stabbed her likely through the heart - at the same time a needle was driven through the doll's heart. It's unclear if the brother acted on his own or if the mysterious forces had a part to play.**

 **But either way, it ended the way you saw Sasuke and Sakura: he takes her body with him into the ocean, where they are discovered and brought back to a distraught family.**

 **I have no idea where that verse at the end is really from, but it was spoken at the climax.**

 **I don't know what else to say, other than thank you so much, and reviews appreciated. :D**


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